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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29555601">Dear Sister, Here's Some Advice</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aweirdkindofyellow/pseuds/aweirdkindofyellow'>aweirdkindofyellow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hospital Beds and Memories [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All Time Low (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Amnesia, Car Accidents, F/M, Illnesses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:00:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>39,531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29555601</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aweirdkindofyellow/pseuds/aweirdkindofyellow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Hospital Beds and Memories</p><p>I don't know... I always expected that I was the one to die first. If I just hadn't survived that car crash, if I just hadn't survived that brutal cancer... I wouldn't have been in this situation right now. My whole life, it was always the two of us no matter what. I guess things change. Honestly, I don't want to go further without him. There isn't a point to life without my partner in crime. It wasn't his time.</p><p>Dear Sister,<br/>Here's some advice:<br/>No matter where I am right now, no matter how you feel, I will always be there. Don't be afraid.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jack Barakat &amp; Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hospital Beds and Memories [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1409554</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>My heart was missing a piece. There was a constant pain that resembled a dull ache right where a specific place of happiness used to be. It wasn't like it would go away while the day progressed and only come back when I thought back to the events that had happened. There was a permanent emptiness that refused to let me do anything other than mourn.<br/><br/>After walking the entire distance home from the hospital, Jack had carefully helped me take off all my clothes and washed my body as I stood there helplessly in the shower. Ever since I had climbed into bed, I hadn't come out. The covers were pulled to my chin and I made no signs of wanting to get up the next day. Jack understood and let me stay, occasionally trying to get me to eat something, but I didn't have an appetite for anything.<br/><br/>That was four days ago.<br/><br/>I hadn't moved from my spot in bed, except to quickly go to the bathroom. That was the only exception. I hadn't showered, eaten, or done anything to show that I was taking care of myself. But that was the whole thing; I wasn't taking care of myself. I couldn't while I knew Cameron was never going to text me again, call me again, surprise me again, or even walk in on me and Jack during the most inappropriate moments. He was officially gone.<br/><br/>The only thing that still needed to happen was the funeral, which was going to take place two days later.<br/><br/>But there was one minor problem. While my parents were busy trying to organize it all, and Tay was at their house trying to cope with her loss, I refused to show up. I didn't want to listen to family members talking about him like they were really close; I didn't want people to give me their condolences; I didn't want to witness my brother being cremated.<br/><br/>My parents had contacted Jack several times after not being able to get ahold of me, and told him to convince me that coming was going to be good for me. He honestly tried, but I wouldn't have anything of it. If I didn't want to go, I wasn't going to go. Cam would understand.<br/><br/>"Hey, Isle, Rian and Cassadee are here," Jack told me from the doorway in a quiet and calm voice. "I'm sure Cassadee would love to meet you."<br/><br/>I was facing away from him, hearing every single word he said to be, but not being in the mood to ever reply. All he got was me ignoring him, or if he forced me to look at him, blank stares. He tried so hard to cheer me up a little, but unless he managed to make Cameron come back, nothing was going to work.<br/><br/>"It's a beautiful day outside; the sky is blue and there is frost covering all the leaves. Maybe we can go outside to the park and take some pictures?" He suggested next, trying to use my own previous hobbies against me. Normally, I would have jumped up in excitement to be able to have the chance to take pictures in such an environment, but I couldn't care for it now.<br/><br/>"Or we could possibly watch a movie downstairs?" He proposed next, taking a couple of steps into the room. However, he didn't get a response out of me. "Well, I brought you some toast. Would you like to eat that? I'll just place it on your nightstand for you... as soon as I remove the breakfast, which I see you haven't touched."<br/><br/>This was the least effective way of communicating with me. After failed attempts of asking me a couple of questions and trying to get me to smile a little, he'd come in and give me whatever food he thought I might want to eat. He'd take the untouched food from the last time he tried, and then he'd quietly leave the room again without saying another word. Not even Taco could get a reaction out of me.<br/><br/>Just as he said and I expected, he picked up the small bowl of dry cereal and replaced it with the plate with two pieces of toast on top of it. He gave me longing stare, as obvious by the way he stood there for a while and sighed, but I continued my gaze towards the floor. Turning on the balls of his feet, he begrudgingly stepped towards the door once again.<br/><br/>But something different happened this time. He stopped before he managed to leave the room, putting the bowl on the dresser. "You know what, Isle? I'm not going to let you do this to yourself. You were doing so well, I'm not letting this ruin you."<br/><br/>If only there was still a thing that could ruin Cam, but he had to be alive for that.<br/><br/>"I understand that this is difficult," he whole-heartedly told me and climbed into bed behind me, "I might not have lost one of my siblings, but I can imagine the pain. I just want you to do what Cam would do. Sure, he'd be upset, but he wouldn't let it take as much control of his life and he wouldn't refuse to go to your funeral. Don't be afraid."<br/><br/>But I still didn't move and inch. I had heard his speech about doing 'what Cam would do' way too often. It was all the same. I was sure Cam would be just as distressed as me. Only he had had some more time to prepare for it that me.<br/><br/>Jack continued in a calmer tone. "I know that you don't want to say your last goodbyes to him, but--"<br/><br/>Before he could continue, tears started spilling from my eyes. That was all I needed to hear. Nobody knew how hard it was to never have been able to say a proper goodbye to him, I didn't want it to be at some service with so many other people.<br/><br/>I rolled over for the first time, hiding my face into his dark blue shirt. The sobs wracked from my body, allowing the heavy pain inside of me to come out. Jack seemed so shocked to finally have gotten a reaction from me, let alone one this big, that it took him a while to wrap his arms around my fragile shaking body. I had been numb since the hospital, but now everything was coming out.<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>Much much later that night, around two or three am, I was wide awake. Jack was turned away, facing the other side of the room, while I was back in my usual position. This time, however, we weren't apart because of my behavior, but because Taco had curled up between us. It wasn't that I suddenly changed after my breakdown, because I didn't talk afterward, I just allowed Jack to hold me and kiss the top of my head while he tried to comfort me. Although it wasn't a sudden improvement, it was still a step forward.<br/><br/>But, that night, something had decided to keep me up. After a certain dream, I felt like I was making a mistake. It was a flashback to when I was in the hospital and Cam was there visiting me. His words kept repeating in my head. Back then, I thought he was trying to encourage me, but now it just seemed like dramatic irony. It was too coincidental.<br/><br/>When I reached out to check my phone, I had many missed calls and text messages. Most of them were from my parents, but I decided to ignore all of them except for one. Everybody was sending me elaborate texts, asking me how I was doing, trying to give me encouraging words, but Tay's was the one that made me feel the best. All it said was a simple 'hey'. Nothing else. I quickly texted her back, hoping the light wouldn't wake the person sleeping behind me.<br/><br/>I slowly slipped out of bed, careful not to shake the creaking bed too much to scare Taco off, which would then manage to wake Jack. After stretching out for the first time in awhile, I sneaked towards the closet and took out the first clothes I could find and something I knew I needed. It was just for two days, I didn't need much.<br/><br/>After picking up a backpack, I stuffed the clothing into it and put the extra shoes on top. Knowing it wouldn't matter all too much if I forgot something and that toiletries weren't necessary at all, I tiptoed over to the door and did my best to open it without making the door handle squeak. It was like it was mission impossible; it sounded like the loudest squeak it had ever made. I cringed inwardly, however Jack continued to sleep soundly.<br/><br/>As soon as I was a couple of steps into the hallway, I was able to go much faster and not care too much about small noises that the house would make as I moved swiftly. Once downstairs, I opened the cupboard next to the alcohol cabinet with a key I had hidden in a drawer in the kitchen. Jack had never really realized that I had started locking it, let alone that I had been hiding something in here. It wasn't terrible if he ever found out, it was just something I wanted to keep for myself. Only Cam and I knew about it.<br/><br/>I cautiously slid the box out and put it down on the table. After turning on the standing lamp close by, I lifted the lid and looked at the contents inside. It wasn't much, just a couple of pieces of paper and some photos. Although it would seem like some worthless possession to anybody except for me, I knew the sentimental value. These were the speeches Cam and I had written for each other to give at each other's funeral, the photos we had chosen to go along with it, and a small note of the song we wanted to play.<br/><br/>I put down the small velvet box containing the ring I had gotten from it's hiding spot in the closet, and set it down while I reached into the larger cardboard box to find out which pieces of paper were from Cam to me. It wasn't all too difficult, since he had organized them into two piles before giving it to me to keep.<br/><br/>I picked up the small binder that was enclosed around all the paper and went to lay it down on the table, however before I could to that, a letter addressed to me fell out. I didn't recall either of us ever writing a letter for the other... He even wrote my name in his best handwriting. While I was curious as to what it was, I couldn't get myself to open it, as if the information inside of it was only going to hurt me further.<br/><br/>Quickly flipping it over so that his loopy 'i' wasn't staring right at me, I looked for the paper that he had written his speech on. On the other side of a lined piece of paper with obscure doodles on it, were his carefully picked words. While skimming over them, I knew I couldn't leave it in a box. I had made a promise to Cam, and I wasn't going to break it just because of how upset I was. He would have done the same for me.<br/><br/>I grabbed everything I needed and put the lid back on the box when I heard movement behind me. Expecting it to be Jack spying on me, I snapped my head towards the sound, only to be making eye contact with Rian and a girl, who I only recognized from pictures, while they were coming downstairs. Not wanting them to see my face that probably was still red and puffy, I turned back to what I was doing, and scrambled all the paper together.<br/><br/>"What are you doing up?" Rian asked with genuine surprise to see me.<br/><br/>"I could ask the same." My voice was much quieter and weaker than I had expected, but then again, I hadn't spoken in days.<br/><br/>He shrugged and walked up to what I was busy with, Cassadee (Rian had told me about her before, so I knew this had to be her) stayed behind a little. "Jetlag. Jack told us we could come downstairs if we wanted."<br/><br/>I turned around to put the box back in the cabinet, the haunting letter along with it. "Could you tell Jack I'm going to stay with my parents'? I don't want to wake him up--"<br/><br/>When I looked back, I saw that Rian had opened the velvet box and was looking at the ring placed delicately in it. "Hey, don't touch that!"<br/><br/>"Sorry." He quickly snapped it closed and placed back on the table, jumping a little from my scolding. "Is that yours?"<br/><br/>I didn't reply and picked up both the binder and the small box before hauling my backpack on the table and carefully stuffing them in there as well. I didn't remember Rian being so curious about stuff without getting permission to look at something first. Maybe Jack had told him that I didn't show any signs of life for such a long time. It might just seem weird for me to be downstairs at this hour, and maybe he was trying to figure out if I did this every night.<br/><br/>"Is it Jack's?" Rian asked next, wondering if Jack had been keeping a secret from him and I kept looking at it for some weird reason.<br/><br/>"No, he'd be stupid to propose to me." I zipped up the bag, having to squish down my clothes to be able to close it completely.<br/><br/>"Whose is it then?"<br/><br/>"Cam gave it to me to keep safe. His car flipped when he came to pick it up." I deadpanned, making Rian look like he had just done something absolutely horrible. I slung the bag onto my shoulder and started making my way towards the front door. "Tell Jack I'm at my parents' and that I'll see him at the funeral."<br/><br/>"You're leaving at three am?" He asked next as if he hadn't realized before that I didn't want to talk to him.<br/><br/>"Tay knows I'm coming, she's waiting for me."<br/><br/>And with that I left the house and drove to my parents' house, my heart beating with fear the entire time.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. He Puts the 'Fun' in Funeral</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tay and I slept in my childhood bedroom that night. After Cam's death, she had retreated to the guest bedroom, quickly grabbing as much of her stuff from his bedroom as she could. That night, however, neither of us felt like sleeping alone. While I had had Jack the last few nights, I didn't feel any less empty than Tay did. We were both lost and afraid, too scared to show our true emotions, but too frightened to deal with it all on our own. Together we had somebody.<br/><br/>My parents were definitely surprised to see me downstairs for breakfast. After not having heard from me for four days and Jack not having much good news about how I was doing, I could only imagine that seeing me at their house must have been a surprise. I told them that I did want to say something at the funeral, but I didn't give them any details. I had been the only one to read the speech Cam had written for me, and it was going to stay that way until I stood up on that stage and read it out for everybody. They only got to know that there were pictures involved and that I wanted to play a song for everybody.<br/><br/>Not even Tay got to know what I was doing.<br/><br/>I, however, did get to know what she was doing. At first, I felt like it might not have been the best thing to do. Not because Cam wouldn't appreciate it or like it, but because I didn't want Taylor to do something she didn't feel comfortable with. But she insisted. It was going to be difficult for her, so I decided to help. We just let it come naturally and didn't want any disagreements going on. I didn't want to take control of what she had in mind, so I went with whatever she wanted me to do. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. She decided to perform her song 'Windows in Heaven' asked me to sing a verse.<br/><br/>I didn't have any contact with Jack during the little while I stayed at my parents'. The lack of phone calls and texts, however, told me that Rian had informed him about me going. If he hadn't, Jack would have probably been freaking out and trying to get ahold of me non-stop. I knew he was worried, and I wished I could do something to make him worry less, but to be honest I didn't have the energy to do so. I was too tired to fake a smile just for the benefit of others. Maybe I'd never be able to.<br/><br/>Tay and I were standing just a couple of feet to the left from the closed casket (Cam's body was too deformed for us to want to have an open-casket during the viewing). None of the guests were at the funeral home yet, leaving us standing in the room by ourselves. It was just a simple room with white walls, chairs lined in rows. We weren't at the chapel or at a church. While my mom had been raised religious, our small family had never been. We were going to cremate Cam, but without any religious services attached. It didn't make sense to us to suddenly do so.<br/><br/>When I saw Jack appear through the double doors as one of the first and early guests, I immediately looked away and told Tay I was going to go to the bathroom. I didn't want to leave her all by herself, but I couldn't stand there anymore.<br/><br/>As soon as I was in the bathroom, I locked myself up in one of the stalls and tried my best not to start crying. I couldn't risk anyone hearing me and trying to console me. It was the exact reason why I had left. Every family member and all of Cam's friends were going to come up to me to give their condolences. I wasn't ready for that; I was never going to be ready for it. It wasn't because I was afraid of saying my last goodbyes to Cam, but because I didn't want people giving me sympathy and expecting to make it all better. Some stupid words weren't going to make Cam's death any less worse than it already was, nor was he going to come back.<br/><br/>But I also knew that staying in the bathroom stall wasn't an option.<br/><br/>After finally gaining the courage to open the door and find my way back to Tay, I saw that many more people had arrived. They barely seemed to notice my presence, making me feel better in a way. Jack, however, looked lost and was continuously scanning the room, predictably for me. Tay wasn't that far from him, but they weren't standing with each other either. I didn't know where to go.<br/><br/>However, when Jack's eyes landed on me, I couldn't help myself from running at him. He hugged me back tightly without saying a word. I was still trying my best not to let tears slip out. All I needed was this hug. Luckily, Jack didn't pull the same stupid move as he did at the hospital. However, he did remove one of his arms from my body, leaving me confused. As soon as Tay joined, I was comforted once again.<br/><br/>It wasn't until a little later that I sent Jack to go help out and keep his friends, who knew nobody here, company. I lightly guided Tay with me when I was sure Jack wasn't going to come back, and led her to a quieter and more secluded area.<br/><br/>This wasn't something I want to do, but I knew I had to. Staying quiet wasn't an option.<br/><br/>"I have something that's yours," I whispered and reached into my purse.<br/><br/><em>"Mine?"</em> Tay questioned and watched as I pulled the velvet box out.<br/><br/>I sighed and put the box into her hand, wrapping her fingers around it. "Well, technically it was Cam's, but he wanted to give it to you."<br/><br/>After shooting me a confused look, she opened it and stared down at the ring in shock, just like I had done when Cam had given it to me. "W-what is this?"<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>When my name was called, I got up from my seat at the front row, tightly holding the lined paper in my hands. Jack gave me a surprised look as he noticed I wasn't just going to sit there, but actually going to go up and say something. His eyes stayed on me as I got up on the podium.<br/><br/>Everybody was staring back at me, making my heart race. I always said that I never wanted to be up on a stage without Cam by my side, and I still felt the exact same way. The only problem was that he was there by my side, just not in the way I wanted him to be. His body was still in the casket just to my right, but it didn't feel the same. I still felt like I was up there all by myself.<br/><br/>"Um..." I started, putting the paper with Cam's handwriting on the lectern in front of me, my voice loudly echoing through the room. I wasn't sure how to start it off, I hadn't really planned anything other than reading out Cam's speech, but I couldn't just do that since it was from his perspective.<br/><br/>I took a deep breath, quickly glancing at Jack who gave me a small nod -- he was trying to make up for Cam not being there to encourage me. "So, nobody really knows about this, unless Cam decided to tell people, which wasn't the intention. Back when I was still in and out of the hospital and things didn't look all too good, Cam suggested something. He suggested that we write speeches for each other's funerals. Back then, it was just Cam trying to find out how I wanted my funeral to go and he didn't want to make it too upsetting, so he tried to make something fun out of it. After forcing me to read out the speech I had written for him, he told me that I was going to have to stay alive longer than him if I wanted to know what he wrote. I don't think this is what he meant. But, I made a promise, and I'm going to keep it. I'm going to apologize in advance for all the things he says in this.<br/><br/>"Here's what Cam has to say:<br/><br/><em>"Ok, if I'm correct, this is being read by Field -- for those who don't know, that's my nickname for Ireland -- at my funeral. First things first, this means that Ireland managed to outlive me, which is pretty fucking amazing. I wonder how old you guys all are, but I guess I'll never know until I realize I'm living the last moments of my life.<br/><br/>"But I don't want this to be morbid and sad, 'cause that would just suck balls. Now I have the chance to embarrass people without them getting extremely mad at me and wanting revenge! I would never miss that opportunity, so watch out, especially since I know that Ireland wrote some pretty embarrassing things about me in her speech. Yes, I confess, I wrote this after you wrote yours. To be honest, I was playing tic-tac-toe with myself for the longest time while you were busy writing before I realized it might actually be cool to write one myself. If you don't believe me, just look on the back of this paper, you'll see me losing many games from myself. Pretty pathetic.<br/><br/>"I'm just embarrassing myself, which wasn't my plan. I wanted to embarrass y'all, so let's get to that. Since I don't know what Ireland can and can't remember at the point that she's reading this, I'm going to have to go off what she knows at this moment in time, the moment in which I'm writing this letter. It does mean I'm missing some golden opportunities, but I can't just assume things that are unpredictable. Unfortunately, it does mean that most things she remembers are embarrassing for me. There're so many stories to tell, I don't know which ones to choose.<br/><br/>"I'll start off with one neither Ireland or I can really remember, but I just love the image so much. I hope you can see the photograph, or else you'll have to go off from what I'm telling you. Somehow I've been always the more mischievous twin, but that meant that Field suffered most of the consequences. No, I don't mean that she got the blame for my wrong-doings, which had happened before, but I mean the time when we were still toddlers and basically spent all our time together. As a kid, pens are magical sticks of doom. Fortunately, most walls were spared, but skin wasn't. I absolutely loved doodling, but not on paper. My favorite thing to draw on was Ireland's skin. Too bad I wasn't all too good with colors because everything smudged together and turned into an ugly greenish-black. Let's just say that the day after, when we had to go back to pre-school, Ireland looked a little like a turtle. But who am I to judge.<br/><br/>"Now, on to something good about her. It's not an embarrassing story, but I'll come back to those later, don't worry. So, in middle school, kids are mean as fuck. While high school isn't great either, Somehow middle school is worse. Ireland always fit in easy, while I was the weirder one out of the two of us. I don't feel bad about that at all, because I wouldn't change myself or my childhood. I believe it actually might have affected Ireland more than me. While I would just go on with my own business, she wouldn't hesitate to beat up the bullies. I guess you could say we vowed to take care of each other, which I believe we have done.<br/><br/>"So, back to those embarrassing stories. Ireland might kill me if I say this, which is kind of ironic, but I will haunt her ass if she doesn't read it out (I'll probably haunt her either way). This specific story includes Jack -- Jack, if you're not here, fuck you, you're an asshole. There're many things I could go on about between the two of them, but the best is this one time Ireland and I still lived together in that apartment. I came back a bit later in the evening one day after discussing some stuff for the new album we were putting out, and I find Jack and Ireland on the couch. Now, I didn't walk in on them doing what most couples do when they think they have the place for themselves. No, this was nothing like it. They were in front of the TV, playing some video game, but the sound was off. Instead, the stereo system was on and they were singing along terribly to a Britney Spears song. It was pretty obvious they had had a little bit too much to drink. I just sneakily went to my room and took a couple of videos. Unfortunately, my phone crashed and the videos were nowhere to be found. It was quite a nice concert I got, but their video game skills were horrible. But then again, with what they had to drink, I was pretty impressed with the fact that they hadn't passed out yet.<br/><br/>"Now... is there anything else I'd like to say... There definitely are a couple of things, but I don't want to make this speech too long. Oh, wait, I know. I'm not going to say anything, but here's something for you to watch, just to embarrass Ireland one last time."</em><br/><br/>The next slide was projected on the white screen. A video from when we were just sixteen years old started playing. It was the last memory I had after my accident (I knew because I thought it had been Cam's actions that had lead me to being in the hospital). One of Cameron's nerdy friends had suddenly come up to me with the camera, getting all up in my face with the thing. It was set outside and I was sitting at the table, reading a magazine.<br/><br/><em>"Dude, get that thing out of my face," I groaned and pushed away the camera with my hand, keeping my eyes on whatever I was reading. However, he continued to come closer and I could tell he was zooming in. "Really, stop being such a creep!"<br/><br/>This specific friend had tried to make moves on me before, but I would never have considered dating him. He thought he was so smooth and great and could get all the girls he wanted, but all the girls got the shivers from him, and not in a good way. There were times, however, when he would just act like a normal person and he would be a genuine good guy, but he always seemed to put up an act.<br/><br/>"What are you even trying to do!" I screeched and tried hitting the device out of his hands another time, but with no success.<br/><br/>He snickered and zoomed in on my face again. "Why don't you ask your brother?"<br/><br/>"Cam!" I shouted and got up from my seat to go to the sliding doors that would let me back inside the house. "Your friend's being a--"<br/><br/>Before I could scream out the word 'creep' again, Cameron threw a bucket of water on me from the roof of the shed. He started laughing loudly a threw a bucket of confetti next. I stood there, looking up at Cam and back at the boy behind the camera with the most unamused look as they were in stitches.<br/><br/>"You really think this is funny?" I asked them with a disgusted tone. "This is one of the most childish pranks you've ever pulled."<br/><br/>"You just don't think it's funny because you're the one being pranked!" Cam jumped off the roof and acted as if he didn't nearly topple over.<br/><br/>I shook my head, still not moving from where I was standing. "Nah, this also wouldn't have been funny if you did it to someone else. It wouldn't even be funny if I had been the one doing it to you."<br/><br/>"You do realize you're wearing a white shirt, right?" The friend wiggled his eyebrows and I could see his finger moving the button to zoom in.<br/><br/>A shouted out and went to run at him, however the grass around me had been drenched as well, creating the perfect mud for me to slip in. My ankle twisted, and I fell right into the mud, causing it to splash all over my body. However, I couldn't care less about my white shirt being ruined. Cam burst out laughing once again, now being the one holding the camera.<br/><br/>"Cameron!" I seethed and I pushed myself up with my arms, but couldn't seem to stand properly. "I have a soccer tournament in two days!"<br/><br/>You could see the rage in my eyes and I clumsily charged at him. But even while injured, I was faster than Cam. You couldn't see anything but grass as he tried to hurry away until the camera hit the floor and turned off.</em> Somehow, the recording stopped right before you could see me tackling Cam.<br/><br/><em>"I still like to think that Ireland is embarrassed about this, but I also know that the only thing she was pissed about was the fact that I caused her to be benched for the next two weeks because her ankle had been badly sprained. But let me tell you, she did get her revenge. She managed to break two of my fingers right after the camera shut off... So, we were both prevented from doing things we loved, and with doing things I loved I mean playing guitar, you sick-minded people.</em><br/><br/><em>"Anyway, I'm going to end it off here. I sent in a song I wanted to have played. Some people might not get the humor and might think of is as being very inappropriate. But, fuck you, this is my funeral and I want this song to play. It's way better than all those sad songs most people want playing.</em><br/><br/><em>"Cameron out. (Now, Ireland, drop the mic and go back to your seat for me. If there's no mic to drop, drop something else)"</em><br/><br/>I took off the fedora hat I was wearing that had once originally been Cam's, and let it fall to the floor as Dead! by My Chemical Romance started playing in the background.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. A Painful Goodbye</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Dear Sister,<br/>You probably opened this letter because of what happened. Before I get into the whole sappy bullshit, I just want to make sure you didn't open this on a random day, but because I'm actually not there with you. If it's the first option, please put it down and keep this for a later date.<br/>Anyway... So, I'm dead. I'm not going to try and romanticize it, nor am I going to try and make it seem less than it is. There's no point to beat around the bush. Either I finally did it, or I somehow managed to make it until I was honestly sick or died of old age. I don't know. For some reason, I don't think it's the latter. I do hope you understand, though. I did do it for a reason, but that reason doesn't matter. All that matters is that you're alive to be able to read everything I wrote for you.<br/>If I ever decide to change my mind, I'll probably break into your house and remove this letter so you won't have to read it. I'll make sure to replace it with another one, because I don't want to leave you empty-handed. But you wouldn't be reading this if I had. I'm already getting some doubts now that I'm writing this, but as you lay there in your bed, I don't know what to do anymore.<br/>I keep hoping for you to get better and survive, but it's so terrifying. Every time I think about the day you'll possibly die, I don't want to be here myself anymore. You don't need me there to make sure your life stays on track. Back when we were kids, you were always the one to keep the bullies away from me, you were the one who beat up that kid who ruined my drawing in elementary school, you were the one trying to get me to stop being such a lazy ass and go do something with my life. I might have always been the one to tease you about being those few minutes younger, but let's be honest here. You were the most mature and bad-ass one. I can't imagine a life without you.<br/>So, here's some advice: don't stay hung up on me for long. I did this for the better. You are the stronger one out of us two. I'm probably just a coward for not wanting to be the last one to be alive without the other, but, hey, I know you'll do much better at this mourning thing than I would. Trust me, if you were the one to go first, it would have still come to this. Please don't let this stop you.<br/>No matter where I am right now, no matter how you feel, I will always be there. Don't be afraid. Don't be like me.<br/></em>Cam</p><p>I kept reading it over and over. My hands were shaking, tears slowly running down my face. I didn't know what to make of his letter. It wasn't clear to me. He was trying to make it sound like he had done this to himself, but there was no way he had managed to flip over his car in the way it had on purpose. If it had been a simple accident, such as hitting a tree, it would have made sense. But, now, it was vaguer than what the police told us.<br/><br/>My eyes kept shooting between the words on the paper and the suitcase that was standing a couple of feet away from me. I didn't know what to do. On one hand, I wanted to be alone, on the other I was too afraid to be so. There was a war going on inside my head and I just wished there was a simple solution to it.<br/><br/>But for now, all I could do was what most people were good at.<br/><br/>I folded the letter in the same way Cameron had originally done to make it fit in the envelope, and stood up. Pulling the suitcase behind me, I started to go down the stairs clumsily, sneaking through the otherwise completely quiet house. I didn't want to leave without Jack knowing, but it wasn't my fault that he wasn't at home. My things had been packed for quite a while, and I had been waiting on him for hours, but if I didn't leave now, I was going to arrive in the dark. Maybe I could leave him a note so he would know what I was doing.<br/><br/>However, just as I was looking for a piece of paper in the living room, I heard my name being said in a questioning tone. I turned towards the sound and found Alex observing me from the front door. I couldn't do anything but stare right back at him. It was like he caught me stealing the last cookie out of the cookie jar.<br/><br/>But then Jack joined him, looking at me with a worried expression. "Isle? What are you doing?" He asked, his eyes flickered between me and the suitcase.<br/><br/>I still wasn't sure what to say. If it had been just Jack, I would have explained it all, but with Alex here I froze up. This was something personal I wasn't ready to share with anybody but Jack. However, if that meant Alex had to hear it too, I wasn't going to do it.<br/><br/>"I have to go somewhere." Was all I managed to stutter out and I tried to push past them so I could leave without saying another word.<br/><br/>But Jack had something else in mind. He grabbed my forearm to keep me in place and looked down at me, while I refused to look back at him. "Where? And why with a suitcase?"<br/><br/>I made the mistake of making eye contact with him. As soon as I saw the confusion and concern in his features, I wanted to cry there and then. I wasn't going to do anything stupid, but telling him there would mean somebody else would know too. Don't ask me why I was so against it not just being between Jack and I, because I wouldn't be able to give an explanation. I just had this feeling.<br/><br/>All I could utter next was some important information he needed to know, "there's no cellphone reception or Internet. I promise I'll come back."<br/><br/>He didn't even have to ask me what I was talking about. Well, I didn't give him the chance to ask me. After carefully taking my arm out of his grasp, making sure to show that I wasn't mad, I grabbed my jacket and the keys to Jack's car. Neither of them tried to stop me, or at least I didn't notice.<br/><br/>I just hoped that he wasn't going to miss his car.<br/><br/>After clumsily throwing the suitcase on the backseat, I got in myself and drove away as quickly as possible so that I wouldn't have to see Jack staring at me while I was leaving to god knows where. Of course, I also knew where, but literally nobody else knew, and there was nothing that could hint you towards the right place.<br/><br/>I wasn't even two streets away when Jack started calling me, my phone notifying me through the Bluetooth of the car. While I didn't want to answer, I also couldn't stand listening to that annoying ringing sound the car made whenever somebody was calling. So, I did something I normally would never do. I hit the decline button on the steering wheel and continued my journey.<br/><br/>Four hours or so later, I arrived at my destination. The sun was starting to set, creating an orange glow around the tree tops. The gravel on the path was crunching underneath the tires of the car as I drove slowly on the non-paved road that had no street lights. This was exactly why I didn't want to leave too late. I hadn't driven here in very long, and I wasn't going to risk getting in a car crash as well.<br/><br/>But before the darkness could settle in completely, the house beside the lake came in sight. Slowing the car down even further, I parked close to the front door and finally took the keys out of the ignition. I stared out in front of me for a while. The water was calm, reflecting the light of any visible stars without any disruption.<br/><br/>I understood why Cam loved this place.<br/><br/>Finally, I opened the car door and got out. After driving non-stop for so long, my legs felt wobbly and stiff, yet I still heaved my suitcase out of the back and carried it to the boat house with ease. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and sleep for two days straight.<br/><br/>Luckily, I had brought the key with me. I probably would have broken down in tears if I had stood in front of the door and realized I left them at home. Coming home without having done what I was leaving for in the first place wasn't going to be pleasant. Maybe Jack would have been happy, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to stand it. I would only get worse knowing that there was something I had to do here.<br/><br/>Although I badly wanted to go to bed, I left my suitcase at the stairs and turned on all the lights before wandering around. I didn't go to the living room; I didn't go to the kitchen; I didn't go to the dining room; I didn't go to the TV room. There was only one place I came here for specifically.<br/><br/>The office.<br/><br/>As soon as I turned on the lights in there, I wasn't sure how to feel. There were three guitars plus a bass leaning against one of the walls, and paper was still strewn over the table as if somebody had been here just a couple of hours ago. It didn't seem like this place had been abandoned for a while.<br/><br/>I could still imagine Cam sitting on the desk chair, hanging over the table, a guitar uncomfortably in his lap, as he tried to write another new song. This was the place he always went to whenever he wanted to write without anybody interrupting. We used to spend summers here as kids, but that rarely happened anymore. It really was only being used by Cam these days.<br/><br/>But now he was gone too.<br/><br/>Hesitantly, I stepped into the room and walked towards the desk to see what he had been doing last. I expected there to be a half-written song or just some simple notes for ideas he had, but I was met with something confounding. It was a half-written letter.<br/><br/><em>Dear Sister,<br/>So, this letter isn't an actual one. I'm just not sure what to write for one of the other ones, so I decided to pour my writer's block in here. It isn't my intention to do anything with this, I'm just planning on writing a couple of sentences whenever I'm not sure what to write. I'm hoping that it will help, or else I'm just making my hand cramps even worse... I'll just try it this time and see how it goes. Either I will throw this paper away or I will use it for a very long time.<br/>Ok, so it worked last time, now let's see if it works now as well. I have this stupid TV jingle in my head that's distracting me, but I just can't seem to figure out what it's from. I can't remember the words and there's nobody to hum it to. It's starting to drive me insane.<br/>I suddenly had an epiphany while writing the letter I'm currently working on. I thought of this great new combination of condiments to try on a sandwich, but I found out that I didn't have all the ingredients here. So, I had to drive back to the village, however they didn't have all the things I wanted there. So, I went to the nearest large supermarket... two hours away. I am now beating myself up about it because I wasted my time, I want to get these letters done in time.<br/>I should start a list of what letters I want to write... right now I'm just going at random... great idea...<br/>Why can three colors create infinite other colors when mixed together?<br/>Ok, I just reached the halfway point. Well, I think. I keep adding more things I want to write about, making my list longer and longer.<br/>M p n is run i g o t of in<br/>Got a new pen! Woo! Just bought a shit load at the post office! Fuck yeah! There are so awesome! I thought of getting different colors, but I'm going to try to keep this consistent.<br/></em><br/>There were pages and pages of these small notes, but all I could think about was that he was writing letters for some random purpose. I got chills from him starting off the letter the same way the one from our box started. There was something going on. Maybe the list he was talking about would help me figure it out.<br/><br/>I scavenged through the paper and finally found one with single phrases scribbled on, crossed out, and marked with a check mark. If it had just been laying there, I would have shrugged it off as some weird lyrics he was trying to write. There were so many arrows and edits.<br/><br/><em>Death day (check)<br/>First birthday without me (check)<br/>Wedding (check)<br/>Getting a new pet (crossed out)<br/>Pregnancy (check)<br/>Making a difficult life decision (check) x 3 20s, later, even later<br/>Second birthday (crossed out)<br/>....<br/>18th Birthday 1st Child (check)<br/>18th Birthday 2nd Child (check)<br/>18th Birthday 3rd Child (check)<br/>Death of somebody important (check)<br/>Following your dreams (check)<br/>....<br/>Unsure (no symbol)<br/>Moving (check)</em><br/><br/>It continued like that, creating a list of many important life events. For some strange reason, my heart started being faster and faster the further I skimmed through the list. These were all the events in my life that Cam would miss.<br/><br/>I threw the paper on the table as my breathing became shallow.<br/><br/>My eyes focused on a large moving box filled with letters the same size as the one I had read over and over that day.<br/><br/><em>What had he done.</em></p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. My Brother's Legacy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I woke up around six am the next day. After discovering the box of letter Cam had left behind for me, I left the room altogether. I retraced all my steps turning off all the lights this time and pulled my suitcase up the wooden stairs. Not much longer afterward, I had changed into one of Jack's large shirts I had stolen, and climbed into bed. While I had expected to get countless of nightmares that night, just like all the previous nights, I actually couldn't remember that I had dreamt of something when I woke up.<br/><br/>There was just one problem. I didn't bring any food with me when I went here and there wasn't exactly anything for me to eat in the cupboards. So, whether I wanted to or not, I was going to have to go into the village to buy myself some food at the local store to keep me going for the time I was staying. But I really didn't feel like driving there.<br/><br/>So, what did I do?<br/>Something I had been wanting to do for a while.<br/><br/>I put on my outdoor sport's gear and running shoes and just went for it. The dark road I had been driving on the evening before now didn't look as frightening anymore with the sunlight pouring in past all of the empty branches. It actually was pretty calming to run through the cold freezing air, my breath turning into clouds right in front of my face. If only it weren't for me running out of breath in no time.<br/><br/>Although I knew my stamina was so bad because of not working out for months on end and that it wasn't going to get any better quickly, I still beat myself up about it. I really needed to get back into shape even if it were only for myself (I didn't know whether or not I still wanted that personal trainer job). So, after walking for a little while as I tried to catch my breath, I tried starting back up again.<br/><br/>It was a difficult journey. I stopped way more often than I wanted to, but I continued to push myself. The thought of not haven eaten for a while contributing to my terrible performance had only crossed my mind a few times. For some reason, it felt better to blame it all on me not bothering to work out for so long than to blame it on something so small. It wasn't that I was trying to be a perfectionist, I just hated the fact that all the things I had been good at were taken away from me.<br/><br/>Eventually, at a much later time than when I had left the house, I arrived at the small village that didn't consist of much more than one main road and houses built around it. I decided to stop my run and walk instead, not wanting to be the center of attention too much. The village was small enough for people to know who did and who didn't live there, so I didn't need to attract any more looks than what I would already get.<br/><br/>As I made my way to the store, I came past a tattoo shop. Usually, I'd just continue walking, never thinking of getting something permanently tattooed on my body. But this time was different. I actually stopped and looked through the window. The place didn't look sketchy or anything, it looked perfectly fine. The floor was tiled, everything seemed clean, and somebody was seated at the desk. I just didn't know why I'd want to go in, yet I still did.<br/><br/>A bell rang as I pushed the door open and let it fall closed behind me again. The person behind the reception looked up immediately from what she was doing and smiled at me even though I probably looked completely lost. Trying to reciprocate the friendly smile, I walked up to her and stood at the tall reception desk that I could easily rest my arms on.<br/><br/>"How can I help you?" She asked in a friendly tone, despite her appearance stereotypically suggesting otherwise. Her hair was a dark purple, tattoos covered her entire body as far as I could tell, and she had multiple piercings.<br/><br/>"I, umm, I'm not sure, actually", I stuttered back while looking around at all the sketches that were placed underneath the glass sheet on top of the desk and hung up on the walls. They actually didn't look half that bad.<br/><br/>"Well, I can tell you that you're at a tattoo shop, so normally people come for tattoos," she joked.<br/><br/>I shook my head at my stupid remark and laughed along with her. "I actually do know that. I'm just not sure what I'm here for. I kind of walked in on impulse."<br/><br/>"Impulsive tattoos can be pretty fun, but many of them are regretted later on, so I would think about it for a little. Have you ever gotten a tattoo before?"<br/><br/>"No..." I sighed a little as I looked down at my fingers thinking if I really did want to do this. "My twin brother died just a week or so ago, and I was thinking of getting something in memory of him."<br/><br/>"Oh, I'm sorry," the girl frowned in genuine concern, but there wasn't anything she could do about it, "I'd happily help you create something, we don't have any appointments today, so I'll have as much time as we need. Did you have anything in mind?"<br/><br/>"Well, there was this one thing he said in a letter he left behind for me..."<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>It was around half past four (in the afternoon, of course) when my tattoos were bandaged and I was given some antiseptic spray to use on it. The pain was quite strange when she had still been tattooing me. Rather than it causing me to scream out as soon as she got working, the pain always settled in a little later and it was a dull-achy pain rather than a sharp one. In a weird sense, it was quite pleasant.<br/><br/>I had gotten two tattoos that day. One was on the base of my neck, which had been the more painful of the two, but it still didn't hurt all that much. It was a small black and white tattoo of two birds sitting on a branch with some lyrics of a song that Cam had written: "I just wanna be more than a memory". This one wasn't based on the letter, and the entire song had a different meaning, but I thought the line fit well. I couldn't imagine Cam having gone without leaving something big behind for people, and I wanted to give that to him. Then, the second tattoo was much larger, but also in black and white. It covered most of my left forearm. There was an old compass that had the date of Cam's death 'engraved' on it in very small roman numerals in the place a watch's brand would often be, a rose had been wrapped around it with the thorns still on. It referred back to the part in the letter of him saying that no matter where he was, he'd still be there.<br/><br/>I didn't feel bad that I now had a 'piece' of Cam with me forever, even when I'd get old and wrinkly. It was something I'd always have with me and would never forget.<br/><br/>After paying the total amount with my credit card since I knew nobody had access to it and couldn't track me down, I thanked the woman who had tattooed me again (I found out her name was Charlotte before she started). The only thing left to do was do some grocery shopping and then figure out how I'd get back to the boat house.<br/><br/>I only bought some essentials, such as bread, condiments, some meals for dinner, and anything else I told myself I needed. It did, however, end up with me having three large bags of groceries to take back all the way. There was no way I could go running again with my hands so full, and I started cursing myself for not just having taken the car. I was going to have to walk and that would probably take me over an hour to almost two hours. There was no way I was going to do that. Taking a taxi was an option, but there were only a couple driving around, and none of them were close to me.<br/><br/>"Hey, are you Cameron's sister?" A man who looked to be in his early thirties or late twenties came up to me. He had the classic hipster beard and haircut, but his clothing didn't fit with it making sure he didn't look like a pretentious asshole.<br/><br/>I frowned, not sure where they would have known each other from and whether or not this was just a coincidence. "Umm..."<br/><br/>"Cameron Knight," he clarified for me, "we often hang out whenever he comes over here. I've helped him write songs during many late night sessions. And please stop me if I'm incorrect so I don't make some more awkward mistakes."<br/><br/>"No, yeah, that's me," I told him, surprised I had never heard Cam tell me about some guy he wrote songs with before.<br/><br/>"I thought you guys looked similar!" The guy grinned. "That, and he's shown me photos... Anyway, my name's Greg."<br/><br/>"Hi..." I shook his hand.<br/><br/>He pointed at the plastic bags at my feet. "You look like you need a little help."<br/><br/>"Yeah... I didn't take my car with me from the boat house since I decided to go out for a run. I realized a little too late that I couldn't take it all back."<br/><br/>"I'll happily help you, my truck is parked just a block over."<br/><br/>I don't know why, but I decided to trust the stranger who claimed he knew Cam. He could have been some creepy stalker who happened to know everything about us, but something told me that that wasn't all too likely here. I was probably just intrigued by this person who nobody knew about. Maybe he had been credited on the album but only in the small print?<br/><br/>"So, is Cameron here with you?" Greg wondered as we sat in the truck and he turned on the engine.<br/><br/>I looked at him with widened eyes until realizing he probably didn't know if nobody knew that he was a friend of Cam's. "He, umm... no... He got in a car accident a week ago and didn't make it..."<br/><br/>"Oh..." He went silent. "I-- I don't know what to say."<br/><br/>"Don't worry, I'm fed up with everybody feeling sorry for me and giving me their condolences. I'd rather have people be quiet unless they have something genuine to say."<br/><br/>The rest of the ride, we didn't talk to each other anymore. It wasn't that the situation had gotten awkward or anything, it was just that neither of us knew what to say. We probably would have connected over Cam if he had still been alive, but now neither of us said a thing about him anymore. It was going to take a while getting used to having him gone.<br/><br/>The only comforting thing was that Greg knew how to get to the boat house without needing any directions, meaning he had been there a few times before.<br/><br/>As we arrived, he helped me get the bags out of the backseat even though I could have easily done it by myself. It was what he said just before we said our goodbyes that got me. "I'm pretty sure you've heard this a lot as well, but I want you to know that Cam is probably looking out for you and that he will be proud no matter what. That, or he will try to scare the living shit out of you by doing ghostly things."<br/><br/>"Thanks," I smiled, this being the first thing I heard from somebody that I felt like they really did mean it. It was something simple and not all too meaningful, but it still did something to me.<br/><br/>He waited for me to get inside before driving off and I quickly put away all my groceries, or at least the items that had to go into the fridge. There was one more thing I wanted to do for Cam. Something that would definitely make him proud without doubt.<br/><br/>I carefully entered the study again, not getting the same cold feeling as before, and let my fingers lightly run over the guitars, plucking the strings to hear what they sounded like. It was quite obviously out of tune, but it still made a smile cross my face. I didn't want to tune them without having any reason to. However, there soon was going to be.<br/><br/>I sat down in the chair Cam had been sitting in when writing all the letters in the box to my right, and took a deep breath. It wasn't as difficult as I expected it to be to pick up the pen he had used and to take a clean piece of paper he had on a pile that he still had plans for, whether it be another letter, a song, or a simple doodle.<br/><br/>I just had one purpose, though.<br/><br/>Slowly lowering down the pen onto the paper, and started writing down words just like Cam did for a living:<br/><em>I'm losing my patience and I'm losing myself<br/>Someone rescue me I need help</em><br/><br/>Now all there was to come was the hard work and sleepless nights for the rest of my stay.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Conflicting Views Won't Hurt Us</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I stayed at the boathouse for an entire week, practically locked in the study room like Cam would often do when writing songs. Using the pens and paper he had left behind I wrote as many songs as I could. I knew they would never be as good as the stuff Cam wrote, but I still tried and wrote down everything I felt. In addition to that, I picked up his guitars, tuned them and did my best to teach myself how to play. At first, there was a lot of swearing and giving up since I wanted to do more than I physically could, but whenever I took a quick break and went running before coming back, I managed to progress quickly. I quickly improved three skills in the time it usually took to start up one.<br/><br/>But after one week, I realized it was time to go. I didn't know if I ever was going to come back, so I put the guitars and bass in their cases and put them in the car along with my suitcase and the box of letters. Of course, I also realized I couldn't just show up back at home without telling anybody, so as soon as the car console screen showed that I had one bar of reception, I quickly shot a couple of people a text message.<br/><br/>What I didn't realize was that I was going to lose that signal pretty soon, causing me to be in some deep shit later on.<br/><br/>When I arrived at home, the other car was on the driveway, so I assumed that Jack was at home. Maybe he was already waiting for me. But when I quietly unlocked the door and walked inside with the first two guitars, I heard him talking to another person.<br/><br/>"Do <em>not</em> touch that." Jack scowled in a deep voice. "Isle doesn't like it when people touch her idea board."<br/><br/>"Oh, come on, Jack! You don't actually believe she's going to come back, right? She just isn't that type of girl. She literally left without saying a word!" The voice retorted, telling Jack he had basically gone insane.<br/><br/>"But she promised..." he said in a voice much quieter and weaker than before.<br/><br/>"Yeah, well, promises are meant to be broken."<br/><br/>I turned around and went back outside for two more trips to get all my stuff out of the car. They still didn't seem to have noticed me coming inside. When all the items were in the hallway, I locked the door behind me. Now it was my time to make my entrance. Picking up two cases to show I had actually been out doing something with a reason, I walked into the living room.<br/><br/>However, just before they noticed me, the other person had something more to say. "Look, Jack, maybe it's for the best. Let's be honest here, she wasn't all that good for you. You'll be able to find somebody so much better, somebody who won't leave you like this. Just trust me when I say she isn't going to come back. After a week, somebody like her isn't going to."<br/><br/>"Wow, thanks for having so much faith in me, <em>Alex</em>." I glared right at him, and if looks could kill, he definitely wouldn't be breathing anymore.<br/><br/>He stared right back at me and while he tried to look like he meant every single word he said, I could see a hint of fear and shock in his eyes. Something, however, told me he didn't just tell Jack all that just to make him feel better. I didn't know Alex had always despised me a little. Now I had just given him a reason to turn it into full blown hate.<br/><br/>Without uttering another sound, I put down the cases and walked away briefly to get the heavy box of letters. After placing it on the table, I went over to the mood board that Jack had defended just minutes before, and started taking off all the paper except for the small notes Jack had written me over the course of our relationship. I put all those in an ordered line on the right while the rest of the space was just for the list Cameron had made. That way I could keep track of what there was to read for me.<br/><br/>I could feel the two pairs of eyes on me the entire time, even when I went to the kitchen to throw away the pile of what I now called junk. All the old stuff didn't matter anymore, it was time to start something new.<br/><br/>Just a little while later, after I had decided I actually wanted to recycle the paper and not just throw it away like I had initially done for dramatic effect, the front door opened and Carter came bouncing in. I hadn't seen him since the funeral, and I really hadn't expected to see him so soon after either.<br/><br/>"Carter, what the hell are you doing here?" I frowned, knowing that this wasn't going to help my case with Alex and Jack at all.<br/><br/>He grinned at me in return, taking in his surroundings as he hadn't been here ever before (kinda made me wonder why he'd just walk in the house like that without being 100% sure that it was the right one). "You said you had some goodies!"<br/><br/>"I never told you to come over," I stressed, looking at him as if he were out of his mind. But it was already too late.<br/><br/>Alex had something to say regarding the whole matter. "Wait a second... if I understand correctly, you contacted him and whoever else you decided to send a message too or whatever, but you haven't said anything to Jack. Now, that seems fucked up."<br/><br/>"Yeah, that does seem fucked up..." I agreed with a nod. "But only if Jack hadn't been the first person I texted."<br/><br/>"But he didn't get anything," Alex retorted, picking up Jack's phone and opening the text messages to take another look.<br/><br/>I rolled my eyes and pulled my phone out before tossing it towards Jack. "I'm pretty sure Jack can speak for himself. You can check and you'll find I'm not the annoying little brat you think I am."<br/><br/>Everybody's eyes seemed to snap towards me as the words left my mouth. I wasn't just going to let Alex get away with putting these thoughts in Jack's mind, but something told me this was going to take much longer than just one afternoon.<br/><br/>"Hey, look, I'm just saying that leaving without any announcement isn't exactly the nicest thing to do. Think about it from Jack's side. You just told him you were leaving and left. Nothing about where or for how long. What's he supposed to think?" Alex continued to blame me for whatever he was mad about. Jack had had complete faith in me, it was Alex who started to make him doubt things.<br/><br/>Before Alex could keep going on with his rant, Jack stopped him by patting on his back. He showed my phone and muttered, "Alex, you might want to stop."<br/><br/>Alex rolled his eyes and snatched the device from Jack's hands. I didn't know what he was doing, but he took a moment while I could see he was using his thumb to scroll through stuff. While I expected to get some shit about something else that he wasn't supposed to see (I didn't know what that thing possibly could be, but he seemed to be ready to twist anything), he stated the obvious. "They didn't deliver."<br/><br/>The look he gave me showed that he was blaming me for it. But I didn't understand why he'd be stupid enough to do something like that. After writing three long text messages, I was not going to do something to not make them deliver. I practically told Jack that I would be coming home, that he didn't need to freak out, that I was very sorry, and that I was going to explain everything when I got home. Well, this was nothing like what I wanted to happen.<br/><br/>"And you think I did that on purpose?" I retorted, shaking my head and taking my phone back from him, not feeling comfortable to let him see all the text messages Jack and I had shared.<br/><br/>"It's not that difficult to see that your messages haven't delivered."<br/><br/>"Do you really think I'm going to check my phone while I'm driving? Have you gone <em>insane?!"</em><br/><br/>"It just seems too coincidental to me that all your other messages sent, but the ones to Jack didn't," he pointed out, still not letting Jack get any say in this. To be honest, I would have much rather been having this fight with Jack than with Alex. It just seemed pointless to me. Why would try to defend myself without knowing I actually had to prove something to the one I loved?<br/><br/>"You know what? I didn't come back for this shit." I walked over to one of the guitar cases and opened it, getting out the multiple pages I had scribbled new lyrics on, and harshly gave them to Carter. "Here's what you came for. Do whatever you want with it. Now leave."<br/><br/>Without giving him a proper goodbye or walking him to the door, I went over to my suitcase next. Picking it up, I made my way upstairs without showing that I noticed Alex's glare burning into my back. He was directing all his rage towards me, while Jack seemed indifferent about it. Why wasn't Jack doing anything just to show me he either agreed with Alex, disagreed with Alex, or maybe even had a whole different opinion. I wasn't in a relationship with Alex here.<br/><br/>Running my hand through my short hair and tugging at it lightly out of frustration, I laid down and opened my suitcase to throw all my clothes into the laundry. It was quite the workout having the bend down to grab something, only to stand up and throw it in a laundry basket just a step away. At least I was able to let out my rage in a less aggressive way.<br/><br/>Eventually, just as I was reaching down to grab another t-shirt, somebody came up behind me and wrapped their arms around my waist. I nearly jumped out of my skin, remembering when the last time somebody had touched me without me knowing of their presence; it had been Jack and I screamed at him not to touch me only seconds before Cam was pulled out of the car. This time, I tried to suppress the memory and turned around with a forced smile on my face, circling my arms around Jack's neck.<br/><br/>Before he could open his mouth, I looked him in the eyes and said, "do you want me to explain?"<br/><br/>"No, I understand," he shook his head, his hands interlocked behind the small of my back. "Alex is just trying to look out for me.<br/><br/>I nodded in response, still deciding I needed to give a little bit of clarification, or at least something to show Jack that I really wasn't the person Alex was trying to make me look as. "I promise my trip wasn't for nothing. I brought back some stuff and made sure nobody will have to unexpectedly deal with what he left behind."<br/><br/>"I know." He smiled softly, but there was still a hint of sadness in his voice. I wasn't sure if it was because I mentioned Cam, or if he was upset about the whole situation.<br/><br/>I hugged him tightly for a while before slowly untangling myself from him and turning to go back to me sorting out what else I still had to throw in the laundry. But then something else caught my eye. Somehow I had managed to completely miss it when I had entered the room. Anger was probably clouding my vision before.<br/><br/>"Hey, you got the new bed." I pointed at the large black framed bed that had taken the place of the old wooden squeaky one. Jack and I had decided to get a new one after not being able to deal with the noises the old one made no matter what we did.<br/><br/>"Yeah, it arrived two days ago. Alex helped me set it up... You might also be happy to hear that we also have a new mattress."<br/><br/>"Mind if I test it out?"<br/><br/>"Go ahead." He motioned towards the bed, expecting me to run up and dive onto it.<br/><br/>But I actually had different plans. I moved my body to be facing him again and pulled his head down to let our lips meet in the middle. As I desperately kissed him as if I was trying to prove something, he moved his lips along hungrily, not minding the heated pace I had started immediately. After his hands went down to squeeze my ass, he pushed me onto the bed and crawled up onto me. I didn't wait to hastily take off his shirt.<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>Let me tell you one thing, the new bed was absolutely <em>great</em>. I didn't have the fear of it collapsing every time Jack thrusted in, and for once it wasn't the loudest sound in the bedroom. Plus, as far as I could tell, it was very comfortable. All around the best bed I'd ever owned in a while.<br/><br/>Jack was panting beside me, trying to catch his breath when he finally got a break. I, however, was already climbing on top of his naked body again, pushing my chest up against him and finding a space to rest my legs between his. He looked down at me before letting his head sink into the pillow again, making him stare at the ceiling instead.<br/><br/>"I just have one question," he started, his heart still beating rapidly against my skin, "how did you even know all this stuff was going to be at the place you went to? Like, was it in his will or something? But I don't remember you telling me that was all sorted out."<br/><br/>Instead of replying, I shuffled up and pressed my lips against his again. This time, though he didn't kiss me back and actually pushed me away lightly. With a hand on my bare shoulder, he gave me a stern look. "No, I'm not falling for it this time. Every single time I ask you a question, you want to start again. I'm not up for another round. I will <em>not</em> be giving in."<br/><br/>"Fine." I shrugged and pushed myself up so I was sitting on his torso instead. There was no point in denying what he accused me of, because then I would have been lying, but admitting to it also wouldn't do me anything good. "But first let me get something to drink."<br/><br/>I scrambled to put on a pair of panties and the shirt Jack had been wearing before I had taken it off. He didn't try to stop me as I rushed out of the room and down the stairs. There was just one small bump in the way. In the living room, there was still a figure sitting stubbornly on the couch.<br/><br/>"Yes, I'm still here." Alex glared at me as I went to the kitchen. "I hope you had fun."<br/><br/>I opened the fridge and pulled out a cool water bottle. "Yeah. Thanks for asking."<br/><br/>"Next time, I'd appreciate if you didn't do that while I'm in your house."<br/><br/>"Cool." I nodded, dismissing his comment completely as I walked past to go upstairs again.<br/><br/>When I entered the bedroom again, Jack was wearing boxers and was sitting cross-legged on the bed. He was entertaining himself with something on his phone, which I suspected either to be twitter or Instagram.<br/><br/>"Alex is downstairs," I told him as I got back onto the bed as well.<br/><br/>He turned off his phone and put it on his bedside table while frowning. "I told him to leave."<br/><br/>"Well, he didn't," I pointed out the obvious, "but let him stay. It's not like he's going to achieve anything with it. I don't know what he wants me to say, but whatever it is, it probably wouldn't be the truth."<br/><br/>"He was just trying to 'help me get over you' because he believed you weren't coming back. He's just too stubborn to give in he was wrong now."<br/><br/>"I mean, I can tell him that I was going to leave forever, I can tell him that I didn't care about the consequences, I can tell him he was right all along, but I'd be lying if I did. Sure, I didn't exactly know what I was going to find, but I knew Cam always went to my parents' boathouse when he needed some alone time or some time to really concentrate. So, I decided to follow his footsteps. I wasn't trying to get away from you, I just couldn't stand all the people that kept telling me they were sorry and that everything was going to be ok. The only thing that could work is letting me figure it out myself. I was never going to be gone for more than a week. If anything, I thought I would be coming back early. But I guess I kinda followed Cam's footsteps a little bit too literally and tried teaching myself how to play the guitar, and tried writing some songs, which is my Carter was here. I never intended on any of this happening. I was going to tell you when I left, but I kinda freaked out when I saw there was somebody else. And today wasn't like anything I had expected. If only my signal hadn't been so bad, maybe Alex wouldn't be so mad at me right now."<br/><br/>"What matters is that I'm not mad at you," Jack whispered and caressed my face lovingly, "I'm actually proud of you knowing that this was going to help you."<br/><br/>Little did he know what was to come.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. What's Best For You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A week later, things between Alex and I hadn't approved at all (it's wasn't like either of us actually reached out to the other to try and make things good). But that wasn't the biggest thing that went on. You see, there was something weird going on between me and Jack. We tried our best to go back to the relationship we had before, trying to act the same way we had just after New Year's, but it was all so unnatural. Jack was way too careful around me, while I didn't care at all. He was afraid of saying the wrong thing, but there wasn't really anything that I would have considered wrong.<br/><br/>Further, I also had horrible nights. I would always try to go to sleep, but it would take me much longer to fall asleep than normal. It was like something inside me was trying to keep me up 24/7. Then, when I was asleep, I'd often wake up with a horrible nightmare, leaving me shaking and in near tears. Jack never woke up due to it, and to keep it that way, I always sneaked out of bed and would go downstairs to try to get some sleep on the couch. It would work for a while, but then I'd wake up around five in the morning, and I knew I had to go back up to bed or else Jack would figure out what was going on. Other times, when I woke up later, I acted like I had gotten out of bed early to make breakfast for the both of us. I didn't need him treating me like I was a fragile piece of glass any more than he already was.<br/><br/>I had locked myself away in the room we considered the office (it was just the room Jack kept his guitars and some other gear, along with a desk I had basically claimed) for most of the day. The entire time, I had been busy trying to organize a couple of things. So, basically, I had been sending lots of emails and making lots of calls. Right at that moment, I was trying to retrieve all my social media again. For what I was planning on doing in the future, it might have been a good idea to start that up again. Also, I tried to get access to Cam's social media so we could post a message up on there soon.<br/><br/>However, before I got a reply to all of that, Jack knocked on the open door and walked in. I took off my headphones and put them around my neck so I could hear him clearly. He waited until I finished typing whatever I was working on until he told me what he came here for.<br/><br/>"So, I was wondering if you wanted to go on a late-night drive, that will actually be in the evening... and right now. You know, just so you take a break." He came up behind me and started massaging my shoulders, and I was sure he was trying to see what exactly I was doing at that moment. "You've been working the entire day, you deserve it."<br/><br/>"Ok," I shrugged and agreed without putting up a fight. Going out and driving around aimlessly did sound good, especially since I knew going to bed after working so much wouldn't do me any good. Being busy in my mind wasn't going to help my sleeping problems. "Will we get dinner afterward?"<br/><br/>"Sure, I'm not sure what time we'll be done... but we can make it work."<br/><br/>"Time we'll be done?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "Can't we just decide when to get food?"<br/><br/>"Well, I, umm, actually need to pick something up at a certain time... so..." Jack mumbled uncomfortably as if he hadn't intended me to find this out. But, honestly, I couldn't really give a fuck about why he was acting so suspicious.<br/><br/>"Sure, but I'm driving." I closed my laptop and stood up without hesitating, moving the desk chair so it was under the table again.<br/><br/>His eyes went wide as if I had just caught him doing something I hadn't seen, only this time it was because I said something. "Well, you don't know where I need to go, so..."<br/><br/>"Give me the address and I'll look it up on Google."<br/><br/><em>"No!"</em> He exclaimed too enthusiastically and tried to cover up his mistake, in a quieter and thoughtful tone. "No, no... I'll just give you the directions, the address shows up wrong on google maps."<br/><br/>"Dude, you're acting weird," I snorted and pushed past him, not bothering to delve any deeper. For all I knew, Jack was only being this way because he was too afraid to let me drive because I would think about Cam again, but that only made my will to drive stronger. I wasn't some weak person.<br/><br/>So, after putting on some shoes, I got the key to the car my dad gave us, and didn't give Jack the chance to try and convince me that he should drive. If he had wanted to be successful, he should have given the best excuse he could think of the first time. Otherwise, I would have realized that he was just trying to make up plausible reasons. It wasn't going to work on me this time.<br/><br/>About an hour into the drive, Jack started giving me directions towards where he needed to go. The only thing that seemed fishy was that he was looking at his own phone to find those directions. So, he either had to have some weird written out directions and we coincidentally were on the right road for that, or he was looking at a map and had lied to me about not being able to find it.<br/><br/>Eventually, I pulled up on a highway and realized that there were no other cars on it. Usually, I'd be wondering why there was nobody else, but this time I used it to my advantage. I was driving a sports car at a very normal speed, yet there was an empty long straight road ahead of me. <em>What else was I supposed to do?</em> I slowly started accelerating more, pushing down on the gas pedal, but making sure the change wasn't too sudden.<br/><br/>Jack didn't even seem to realize until I accelerated even further and he glanced at the dashboard. He awkwardly chuckled. "Isle, what the fuck are you doing? You're going way too much over the speed limit." Rather than listening to his subtle request to get me to slow down, I went even faster. "No, Isle, <em>really.</em> You better stop before you do something you will regret." But I still wouldn't let his orders come through. "I'm <em>not</em> fucking around here!"<br/><br/>"Neither am I!" I squealed out in excitement and watched as the meter kept climbing up.<br/><br/>"I swear to <em>fucking god</em>, Ireland! If you don't slow down <em>this</em> fucking second--"<br/><br/>But I enjoyed the thrill too much and didn't see the danger in it. It all seemed cool to me. We had a nice car that could go fast, what was the point of never using that power? At least we could have some fun this way.<br/><br/>"Ok, no, That's it! Pull the fuck over <em>right this instant!"</em> Jack ordered with a menacing growl.<br/><br/>"No, why?" I whined yet still started to slow down a little.<br/><br/>"Just do as I say."<br/><br/>So, I did. After slowing the car down to a comfortable speed and pulling over onto a rest area, he got out of the car and insisted that he would drive the rest of the way. When he slammed the door shut behind himself, I contemplated whether or not just to drive off and leave him there. But we were literally in the middle of nowhere, I couldn't do something like that even though I would do anything to just have some time to myself right at that moment.<br/><br/>Instead, I sighed and slowly pulled myself out as well. Trudging over to him, I pouted and said, "I'm sorry."<br/><br/>He looked at me and took a deep breath while he was leaning against the side of the car. Only after wrapping my arms around his waist and putting my chin on his chest so that my innocent eyes were staring right at him, did he give in, "ok, I'll be honest and say I've wanted to do that before, but I'm still driving."<br/><br/>I grinned, happy that he didn't get mad at me, and kissed him. However, I didn't stop at where the boundary of ending an argument ended. Our lips still connected, I pressed him up further against the car and slipped my hands underneath his shirt and touched the skin just above his waistband. But instead of going along with my intentions, he pushed my hands away and broke off the kiss.<br/><br/>"This is so not happening," he demanded with a shake of his head.<br/><br/>"Oh, come on, you can't tell me you've never fantasized about having sex in a car... a really fancy car... <em>with me</em>..." I trailed my finger up his chest seductively in a way that would normally help turn him on.<br/><br/>"You're right, I can't. But there's no way in hell that it's happening now." He pushed me away with a shoulder nudge and walked over to the other side of the car to get in.<br/><br/>Only when the engine turned on, did I huff in annoyance and get in the passenger seat against my will.<br/><br/>The worst part, however, was when we arrived at Jack's destination. Turned out that he didn't need to pick up anything at all. Actually, he had made an appointment for something. I found out pretty soon after he pulled up on a small parking lot that it was for visitors of the place. What were we visiting? Well, the sign clearly stated both the words 'Psychiatrist' and "Psychologist'. Jack didn't have to say a word for me to figure out that this was for me and had nothing to do with him.<br/><br/>"Really?" I glared as he turned off the ignition and looked at everything but me.<br/><br/>"I'm just saying," he continued to stare at the steering wheel, "it might be really good for you. Just give it a try and see how it goes."<br/><br/><em>"Fuck. You."</em> I seethed but got out of the car nonetheless. "Don't expect me wanting you <em>anywhere </em>near me!"<br/><br/>I still went into the building and was greeted at the reception. The entire place gave me the shivers. Folders of different mental illnesses were lying around and placed on shelves for anybody to freely take. Posters describing other processes and healthcare were on the walls, and a couple of chairs were pushed up against a white wall, a kid's area squashed into a lonesome corner.<br/><br/>"It's either on Ireland Knight of Jack Barakat, I don't know," I told the receptionist after she had asked me which name the appointment was under.<br/><br/>"I have Ireland Barakat? Is that you?" She smiled after looking through the schedule on the computer screen.<br/><br/>"Yeah, but that's not my last name."<br/><br/>"I know how you're feeling. Just waiting for him to pop the question."<br/><br/>"Please," I scoffed and took the clipboard she was handing me, "I do <em>not</em> want to get married to him."<br/><br/>Before she could ask me anything any further or make a comment, I added something to clarify it a little. "He just brought me here without giving me any warning. Always a nice surprise."<br/><br/>"I'm pretty sure he's just doing what he thinks is best for--"<br/><br/>"My twin brother died three weeks ago, and his funeral was two weeks ago. I think I'm allowed some time to mourn before I have to go see a psychologist." I straight up told her and held up the clipboard before walking to the waiting room. "Thanks for this, I'll fill it out and hand it back in a bit."<br/><br/>The meeting was absolutely horrible. Somehow I had managed to walk out of it with a diagnosis and prescription already, even though it was only supposed to be the psychologist/psychiatrist getting to know me. I rarely said anything, but whenever I did, I felt like it wasn't the truth at all. But somehow all that along with Jack's phone call to make the appointment had led them to diagnosing me in no time.<br/><br/>When I left the hellhole, Jack was still parked in the same exact spot as where I had left him. I honestly didn't want to get back in the car with him, but I didn't have any other way to get home. So, I harshly opened the door as soon as I was close enough, causing Jack to jump and drop his phone onto the console with a loud crashing sound. I didn't bother to apologize; he didn't deserve it. I even took the paper I had gotten from the psychiatrist with my diagnosis and prescribed medication, and pushed it up against his chest while I slammed the door shut.<br/><br/>"Are you happy now?" I grumbled and reached into my pocket to get out my earphones and plugged them into my phone.<br/><br/>Unfortunately, I didn't get to start my music before Jack had read the main important points of the letter. "Ireland--"<br/><br/>But just after that, I managed to find a random song to play and turned up the volume as loud as possible without making my ears hurt. I made sure to look out of the window and not pay attention to what Jack was saying. Although I couldn't hear a word, I just knew he was saying that he was sorry but that it was all for the better, because at least now we knew that I was depressed. Well, let me tell you one thing:<br/><br/><em>I was <strong>not</strong> fucking depressed.</em><br/><br/>As soon as we got home, I climbed out of the car, my music still blasting whatever song was on shuffle. Luckily, I had brought my own house key with me, so I managed to go inside and made sure to throw the door closed behind me before Jack had the time to catch up and come inside as well. Sadly, I didn't take the time to lock the door as well, so he could easily walk in, but at least he understood what I was trying to say.<br/><br/>Yet he still followed me up the stairs and down the hallway. I skipped our room and went right toward the guest room. If he thought I was even going to consider sleeping in the same room, let alone the same bed, after he had done something like that to me, he was out of his mind. I could either tell him to sleep somewhere else, only for him to not oblige, or I could take measures myself. I honestly didn't mind falling asleep on the guest bed. It was much better than the couch anyway.<br/><br/>I turned off my music and tossed my phone on the bed. Jack was just two steps away when I shut the door in his face once again. He knew me well enough that all of this meant that he had to leave me alone. Hell, anybody doing this meant they wanted to be all by themselves. But, no. Jack didn't really understand. At least he didn't try to open the door.<br/><br/>"Ireland, what are you doing?" He sighed in frustration through the wood that separated us.<br/><br/>"Going to bed." I shrugged and popped the button of my jeans so I could take them off and get more comfortable underneath the covers.<br/><br/>"Don't you want anything to eat first?"<br/><br/>"Nope."<br/><br/>I climbed into the bed and pulled the duvet up to my chin before lying on my right side, and so facing away from the door. It wasn't all too difficult to tune out Jack's questioning and begging. He could have easily just opened the door and forced me to listen to him, but I didn't think he actually knew the door wasn't locked since he didn't even try the handle.<br/><br/>Much later that night, he finally did, however. He was very sneaky about it, trying to make as little noise as possible. I was still awake, but with my eyes closed, because I couldn't fall asleep, but he didn't know that. At first, I was afraid that he was going to try to lie behind me while I couldn't tell him to leave, practically taking advantage. But, instead, there was only a small weight beside me before he himself sat on the side.<br/><br/>"Ok, Taco, listen up here," he whispered to what I now knew was our cat, "Isle's very mad at me right now and I'm sure it's not going to get better soon even though we said we'd never go to bed while mad at each other. The problem is that I don't feel what I did is wrong, but I guess my intentions weren't perceived as good as I intended. So, it's your job to stay here and make her feel a little better. When she wakes up, she'll think you opened the door and decided to stay with her instead of me. It might be a small thing, but it's important. All you have to do is stay here while I leave. If she finds out I came in, she's going to hate me even more."<br/><br/>His weight lifted off the bed as he started to leave, but Taco didn't understand a word of what he said of course. She decided to follow him, jumping off the bed slyly, but not sly enough for him to not notice.<br/><br/>"No, Taco," he whined, his voice still barely a murmur, and the smaller weight was put on the bed next to me again, "you have to stay here. You can't follow me."<br/><br/>When he tried to leave, it happened again. So, breathing out a little louder than normal, he put her up on the bed again and sat down himself as well. "Ok, fine. I'll stay here until you fall asleep and then I'll leave."<br/><br/>Somehow, even I managed to fall asleep before Jack left. But that didn't mean I didn't wake up hours later with a racing heartbeat.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. It's All Getting Worse</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning I didn't mind staying in the living room from very early hours after my nightmares kept me up once again. At around three am, when the house was completely quiet, I had gone downstairs without having to worry about accidentally waking Jack up. For once I didn't have to go back later in the morning to make sure he wouldn't become suspicious and would think I slept next to him the entire night. I didn't have to think about it at <em>all</em> this time.<br/><br/>It was why I lying was on the couch at ten am, the TV remote in my hand, while the TV itself was on quietly. The sound was on just loud enough for me to have background noise while I watched the screen, but not loud enough for me to hear exactly what was going on. But what was the point of hearing if you weren't actually really watching anyway? I was just sitting there to pass time, not because I actually wanted to watch TV, as evident by the fact that I kept changing the channel without checking what was on first.<br/><br/>There wasn't anything productive for me to do anyway, or at least there was nothing I wanted to do. I might have still been in my pajamas, but I had already gone out for a little while at six am. That did not mean I suddenly felt up for working or anything else. The fact that I hadn't had enough sleep the past weeks also contributed. I could physically feel myself falling asleep occasionally, only for me to shoot awake again. So, I was practically acting like a zombie in front of the TV.<br/><br/>I nearly forgot that somebody else still lived in the house. <em>Nearly.</em><br/><br/>"Taco, what the hell are you doing here! You should be in the guest room keeping Ireland company!" Jack's voice ushered, sounding like he was somewhere on the stairs, the meowing only making his presence more obvious.<br/><br/>"No, no. You're going to wrong way! Upstairs not downstairs." He panicked next and his footsteps thundered down quite loudly, probably rushing behind the sneaky little animal that rarely did what it had been instructed to do.<br/><br/>"Taco, you're not making my case any be-- oh..." He suddenly came to a halt when he saw me on the couch mindlessly switching between channels endlessly.<br/><br/>I snorted lazily, my head rested on my arm, which was propped up on my elbow. "You would have spoiled your own secret plan there if you hadn't spoiled it yesterday."<br/><br/>"What?"<br/><br/>"You might want to check if I'm actually asleep next time." I pointed out while the screen was still flashing every time a new program and description showed up.<br/><br/>"Oh."<br/><br/>My thumb still continued to press the same two buttons over and over again. Up a channel, down a channel, up three channels, down two. Cooking shows were on for a second, only to change to some telemarketer program, only for it to go to some kids' cartoon. I probably had gone to more channels than we even knew we had.<br/><br/>But Jack decided to break my routine. He was suddenly stood in front of me and snatched the remote out of my hand. Keeping hold of it, he stared me down for a little while as if expecting to get an answer to an unasked question. I just laid my head down on the pillow and watched as Discovery Channel played some crappy reality show.<br/><br/>"How about we go pick up your medication at the pharmacy?" He suggested with a fake smile I could see out of the corners of my eyes. If I had been him, I wouldn't have dared to bring that subject up again. And I could tell he was a bit skeptical about it as well. His posture changed when I didn't say anything for a while.<br/><br/>But I actually had a reasonable answer this time. I raised my hand over my head and pointed backward towards the kitchen. "Already done so."<br/><br/>Yeah, that was right. That six am thing I did? I went to the pharmacy and got the medication that had been prescribed to me the day before. The only reason I did it was because I had nothing better to do. It meant I was going to keep myself busy for at least half an hour. There was no way in hell I actually did it because I felt like I needed those pills to make me feel better. A diagnosis that had been made this fast did not count to me, especially if I felt like it wasn't the right one.<br/><br/>"Oh, wow, I'm impressed. Did you already take your dosage today?" He asked next. For some reason, it seemed like he considered that as me coming to terms with it and forgiving him for what he had done. But, boy, it was far from it. The only reason I was acting this way wasn't just because I was sleep deprived, but also because I was still pissed as fuck.<br/><br/>"Yep." I popped the 'p', not feeling even a little guilty for lying right to his face. Of course I didn't take it, and I was never going to. I just knew that not having gotten them would have caused me more trouble. At least now I could fake it.<br/><br/>"Good." He smiled honestly this time and picked up my feet from the couch before sitting down himself and putting my feet back on his lap.<br/><br/>I wasn't going to let that happen, though. Almost immediately, I sat up straight and all the way on the other end of the couch. However, that didn't feel like enough; just having to deal with his presence aggravated me. So, what else was there to do than to hum unemotionally in response and get up.<br/><br/>"Isle..." Jack sighed and tried to reach out for my hand, but I moved it away before he could grab it. "I know you might still feel like shit now, and it might even get a little worse in the beginning due to the medication, but eventually it will help a lot. Trust me, ok? I'm here for you."<br/><br/>"Yeah, right," I scoffed as I went to go upstairs. "How about we do it differently? You leave me alone and we work further from that. Ok? <em>Ok.</em> Cool."<br/><br/>"Come on, don't be like that." He jumped off from the couch, but didn't start taking steps towards me yet.<br/><br/>"Why don't we just blame it all on the supposed depression I have so neither of us has to take any responsibility. A nice <em>easy</em> way to get out of it all, am I right?"<br/><br/>"I did not do it for that reason at <em>all</em>."<br/><br/>"Oh, yeah, it's not like you <em>forced</em> me to get a bullshit diagnosis not <em>even</em> a month after Cam died. Makes <em>total</em> sense!" I screamed while going up the stairs, but that didn't mean it was over.<br/><br/>"Hey, I'm <em>not</em> the bad guy here!" Jack yelled back, no longer retaining his anger.<br/><br/>"Well, who is, Jack? Huh? <em>Who the hell is!?"</em><br/><br/>Before I got another reply, I had gone into the guest room and slammed the door behind me. The sound echoed through the house, and it wouldn't surprise me if you could hear it if you were standing outside. I made sure to lock the door this time, not wanting him to sneak inside once again. This was <em>it.</em><br/><br/>"You're acting like a fucking teenager!" I heard Jack bellow from the foot of the stairs.<br/><br/>But I didn't dare to snap something back. I was already sitting on the floor with my back against one of the walls, tears streaming down my face. My voice was going to be way too shaky to retort something strong.<br/><br/>And that was how I was left all by myself while Cam's death replayed in my mind over and over again like a never ending film created especially to torture me.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Long Lost Heartache</h2></a>
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    <p>"Hey, Alex and Lisa are here," Jack told me a little while after the doorbell had originally gone.<br/><br/>"Cool," I replied, all my attention on the laptop in front of me. Once again, I was busy working by sending emails back and forth constantly. I had so much to organize and plan and only such little time. In less than a month, everything had to be ready.<br/><br/>"Don't you want to take a break and come downstairs to say hi?"<br/><br/>"I'm fine." I brushed him off, still not looking in his direction and opening yet another email that needed to be replied to. This was a lot more difficult than I had expected, without much to build on I didn't exactly have the best cases to explain in my emails.<br/><br/>"Well, ok, then." He rolled his eyes and walked out of the room, closing the door in an aggressive, but not loud way. He probably wanted to show he wasn't happy with my behavior, but without scaring the guest we apparently had over.<br/><br/>In case you were wondering, I still slept in the guest room and things between Jack and I hadn't gotten better, let alone the situation between me and Alex. Something in me told me that the only reason Alex and Lisa were here was because Jack told them about our fighting and Alex was here just to make a point, to tell us that he had been right all along. Maybe Jack believed me when I first came home after disappearing, but it wouldn't have surprised me if he now fully agreed with Alex.<br/><br/>It had been a week or so since I had been 'diagnosed with depression' and given the medication that was supposed to 'help' me. Well, I still full heartedly believed that I was not depressed. I didn't feel like it, nor did have any of the symptoms that the internet told me about. Yes, I <em>had</em> occasional difficulties concentrating, but not when I was working; yes, I <em>was</em> lacking energy and was fatigued, but that was because of my nightmares; yes, I <em>was</em> no irritable, but everybody is when nobody believes them; oh, and my favorite one was no interest in sex, but why would I be interested in doing something so intimate with somebody I didn't even have a connection with anymore? My sex-drive went down along with the way Jack and I had been acting towards each other, and nothing was going to change that. I had many of the symptoms of depression, but all of them had a reason behind it other than a mental health issue.<br/><br/>So, I refused to take my medication. Of course, Jack wouldn't have any of it and forced me to take the required dosage every day. I just found ways around it. He watched me carefully every time I had to take it and made sure that I actually swallowed it. I just managed to sneakily hide it somewhere and not have to take it, only to throw it out in another way.<br/><br/>After reading another rejection in an email, I sighed and rested my head on the desk, my arms acting as a pillow. I was only trying to do the right thing, but nobody was reciprocating it. All I was getting was requests for more details and something they could actually base a good response on, but I didn't have what they wanted.<br/><br/>I'll let you in on what I was trying to do. First of all, I did a lot of thinking about it, and it wasn't something I did on impulse like the tattoos, so don't think this was some stupid idea of mine. I wanted to do something with the shitty songs I had written at the boathouse, if not for me but for Cam. It was the reason why I had also sent a group text to Carter, Charlie, and John. Things adding up yet? It seemed like the perfect thing to do: to continue working on achieving my brother's dream. The only problem was that their label dropped them after the accident and so they no longer had a manager either. So, I was trying to figure out something for that. Although everybody like the songs Cam had written and produced, they had no idea what I was going to be like except for the duet I had done with them before. We didn't have the money to go out and produce the songs on a quality level ourselves, or else we wouldn't have been having this problem. I also needed to figure out what was going to happen with all the planned tours that year. It was a complete mess.<br/><br/>I closed my eyes for a little while too long, causing me to slowly start falling asleep. If only I could close my eyes for a little while and catch up on the sleep I was missing... I would feel so much better. But of course, that wasn't how things were going to work. As soon as I started to doze off properly, I was met with a close-up slow-motion of Cam's dismantled and bruised body. His eyes were lifeless while his skin started turning a pale waxy white. The contrast of the skin and the deep red blood from the cuts forced shivers down my spine.<br/><br/>I shot upright, gasping for air, my heart still beating rapidly. Looking to my right, I saw that Lisa had entered the room and had gotten a fright from my fright. Guilt spread across her face while I practically clutched my heart.<br/><br/>"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," she apologized and seemed cautious to step closer, but still did so.<br/><br/>I shook my head and stuttered, "i--it's fine."<br/><br/>I didn't want to tell her that she had nothing to do with it and that it was from the vision I had, that way I didn't have somebody else thinking I was crazy. All I really was focused on was trying to get my heart to slow down, which it had not done at all yet. Instead, it actually felt like it had gone faster and my breathing was becoming shallower by the second.<br/><br/>"What are you working on?" She asked as she tried to take a look at my laptop screen, which was still on.<br/><br/>I slammed it shut before she could read anything, not because nobody could know, but because I really didn't feel like answering questions when everything was already going wrong. Trying to act calm in the state I was, was not a good idea. I could barely speak.<br/><br/>"I-- I need to go to the bathroom," I stammered and rushed past her.<br/><br/>Automatically, I ran into the ensuite bathroom of what used to be attached to mine and Jack's bedroom, and locked the door behind me. I had been using the guest bathroom for days now, but all the stuff I had left in here was still in its original place. Not realizing that I had walked into the 'wrong' room, I walked up to the sink and splashed cold water on my face, hoping it would help a little. In the end, I decided to sit on the floor with my back against the cupboards, trying to concentrate on getting my breathing back to normal.<br/><br/>There was a knock on the door not much later... or what felt not much later to me. Honestly, it only felt like max five minutes to me, but what Jack said contradicted that. "Hey, Ireland, Lisa says that you've been in there for half an hour, are you ok?"<br/><br/>Instead of giving a verbal answer, I got up from the floor, swallowing once more, and opened the door. Rather than looking worried like he usually did, Jack actually looked quite annoyed. Well, that clearly showed how much he cared about me. Just over a month ago he would have been on the other side, ready to knock the door down if it had to come to it, but now he just looked like he considered this an obligation he had because Lisa told him about it.<br/><br/>"What were you doing in there?" He asked in a monotone voice as he looked at me leaving the bathroom.<br/><br/>"What do you think I was doing in there?" I challenged with a sneer as I walked past him and into the hallway.<br/><br/>He huffed with a shrug, showing just how uninterested he actually was before still following me out. The only reason for him to do that, though, was probably because he coincidentally had to go in the same direction.<br/><br/>"You need to take your medication again." He pointed out as I was just about to go back into the study.<br/><br/>Letting out a small groan, I went downstairs with him. Alex and Lisa were sitting on the couch, Alex staring at his phone while refusing to notice my presence, and Lisa looking happy because she believed things had to be better if Jack and I were coming downstairs together. She couldn't be more wrong.<br/><br/>We both trudged into the kitchen; Jack leaned against the counter as he waited for me to get it over with. He made sure to watch my every move even though I hadn't even opened the bottle containing the pills.<br/><br/>"Look, I <em>even</em> grabbed the plastic cup!" I sarcastically cheered and waved it in front of his face.<br/><br/>As I turned around to fill it with water, I got a quick glance of Lisa's face. All the happy features had turned down into a frown, now having seen how Jack and I actually interacted. Usually, this could have been taken as a joke, but it was quite obvious it wasn't this time. She was practically the only one here who still cared about how this relationship was going.<br/><br/>I proceeded to take one single pill out of the clear orange bottle and acted like I was taking it, gulping down some water to chase it. Just like all the other times, however, I managed to somehow hide it in my hand without Jack noticing, and slipped it into the pocket of my hoodie. After Jack gave me the nod of approval, I threw the cup that still contained some water into the sink (which was the exact reason why he had made me use a plastic cup instead of a glass one).<br/><br/>As soon as I was done there, I went to go upstairs again, but I noticed Alex eyeing me suspiciously. He glared at me and squinted his eyes as his gaze flickered between my face and my pocket. Of course he was the one to figure out what I had been doing. Just before he opened his mouth to tell on me, I stopped him.<br/><br/>"Oh, right, I forgot," I laughed in a light manner as I put my hand back in my pocket. Right after, I took it out again and showed him the middle finger before disappearing up the stairs.<br/><br/>I knew that he was going to tell Jack, so the first time I did when I was in the second floor hallway was to run to the guest bathroom and flush the pill down the toilet. There was no evidence of me not having taken it that way... unless Jack caught me in the bathroom. So, I quickly sneaked back into the study and got back behind my laptop while acting to work.<br/><br/>Just as I had expected, Jack came stomping up the stairs just seconds later. This time, he didn't bother to be remotely polite about anything. He slammed the door open fully and gave me a hard look; lips pursed and eyes drilling holes into me.<br/><br/>"What?" I asked as if I had no idea what he was doing here, but still did it in a bitchy tone.<br/><br/>"Oh, you know exactly what," he growled, not taking his eyes off me. It was like he was expecting me to break just because of his menacing glare. Well, let me tell you, it didn't scare me at all, it did nothing to me.<br/><br/>"Do you think I'd be here asking you if I did?"<br/><br/>"Alex said you didn't take your medication. He said that you acted like you did, but just tried to trick me."<br/><br/>"Alex says a lot of things, Jack." I rolled my eyes and went back to check the new emails I had gotten since I last checked.<br/><br/>He came up to me and pushed down the lid of my laptop swiftly, barely leaving me enough time to move my fingers before they were trapped underneath and maybe even broke. "You are not going to ignore me again, ok?"<br/><br/>"So you believe Alex over me?" I raised an eyebrow while rolling up my charger since I wasn't using it anymore and needed to do something to control my inner rage.<br/><br/>"Actually, yes, yes I do. I mean, do I trust the guy I've been best friends with for fifteen years or do I trust the girl I've not even been dating for a year?"<br/><br/>"Ok, seems logical. Nice to know our whole relationship was based on a lie. I really appreciate you telling me that before I waste any more of my time on you."<br/><br/>"You know what?" He barked, getting even closer and looking down at me as if to show he had the upper hand here. "I <em>don't</em> have to put up with your shit. The only reason I still am is because I hoped you would get better. But it turns out you can't even be bothered to do that! <em>You</em> are not the one wasting time on <em>me</em>. <em>I</em> am the one wasting time on <em>you</em>."<br/><br/>"Oh, fuck you."<br/><br/>"Really? Is that all you've got?"<br/><br/>"You say you don't want to put up with me anymore, so let's make that wish come true." I stood up, put my laptop under one arm and took hold of the charger with the other. Before walking out of the room, I tapped Jack on the cheek twice. "Now you've got a crazy-ex story to tell the next girl."<br/><br/>When I entered the living room to leave the house, Alex immediately had to make a comment. "Look, she's running away again. Let's see if she actually returns this time! Wouldn't surprise me if she didn't."<br/><br/>"I was actually thinking of coming back later when you were gone, but your plan actually sounds so much better. Thanks for the idea, Alex. I give you full credits for that one." I told him full heartedly, telling him the actual truth, while putting on my shoes and jacket.<br/><br/>Soon after I grabbed the keys to, what I now considered, my car and drove off without saying another goodbye. I didn't have a destination but knew I had to go somewhere for the night. At first, I planned to go to the hill I had gone to after my first real fight with Jack and my brother and mom bugging me about it, but it was already way too dark to hang out there. I didn't want to go to my parents, because they'd tell me to make up with Jack and I didn't want to bother them while they weren't doing all too good already. And then there weren't many places to go to anymore except one.<br/><br/>When I pulled up on the driveway where I hoped I would at least get to spend the night, I thought back to Abagail. She technically had been right. Maybe Jack hadn't broken up with me as soon as I was in remission, but he did break up with me after all that serious stuff was done. It did make me feel a lot like the petty case she was trying to set me up as. I wouldn't surprise me if she decided to swoop in and take my place. Jack probably wouldn't mind a bit.<br/><br/>I rang the doorbell, my laptop under my arm again, and waited for somebody to answer. It took a while, but I knew somebody had to be home because both cars were outside and the lights were on. If they wouldn't let me in, I was going to have to camp out in my car and I wasn't exactly sure how safe it was to sleep out in the open with a fancy sports car.<br/><br/>"Ireland? What are you doing here?" The person who opened let me in and lead me to the dining room where two other people were sitting. "We were just eating dinner."<br/><br/>I looked at the small family of three and felt guilt rush throughout my body. Here I was, interrupting a perfect family moment. First of all, it was rude of me to show up at this time. Second of all, my drama was not going to fit in here at all.<br/><br/>"Ireland!" Emily squealed as she jumped off her chair and ran towards me, hugging my legs.<br/><br/>"No, no, go back," I gave her a guiding push back towards her chair and shook my head while I started retreating back to the front door, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know you guys were having dinner right now. I'll just come back later... maybe... Now's probably not the time. You guys just forget I was here. It doesn't really matter that much. I'll figure out somewhere else to go... I don't have anywhere else to go... Maybe I can go to a--"<br/><br/>"Ireland, are you ok? You look distressed," Trisha wondered, not getting mad at me for showing up or at her husband for letting me in.<br/><br/>I stopped rambling and stared at her before my eyes started traveling to the other members of the family. Here I was, confronted with the perfect little family that my now-band-member, John, had, while I had just ruined anything I had remotely close to it.<br/><br/>What the hell had I done?<br/><br/>"I-- I think Jack and I just broke up..." I whispered with a shaky voice while tears started running down my cheeks, the flow getting faster and heavier with every word.<br/><br/>The two adults looked at me, both shock written across their faces, and it seemed like they already knew exactly what to do, as if they had a script for it. Trisha ushered Emily away with the promise of getting to watch some TV and getting ice cream later, while John stayed with me and hugged me tightly, acting the same exact way Cam would have done.</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Coming Back Shortly</h2></a>
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    <p>I woke up in a single twin-sized bed in a room on the smaller side. After listening to me breaking down and trying to comfort me, John checked with Trisha if I could stay here for a while until I figured out where to go next. Emily was very excited to hear that I was going to be around for awhile even though her parents had told her that I probably wouldn't be up for playing with her for the time being. I just thought it might do me good to try to forget a little and focus on the simple happiness even a four-year-old possessed. But that didn't mean I was going to start playing dress up with her the first proper day I was there.<br/><br/>The sun poured in from the sides of the blinds in front of the small roof window. I was staying in the smallest spare room they had and it was practically in the attic. It wasn't that they didn't want me to occupy their usual guest room, but that there just simply was no space for me there. They were busy renovating it, so I couldn't exactly sleep in a room that barely existed.<br/><br/>It was fairly late when I decided to get out of bed. My eyes were still crusty and painful from the crying I had done the evening before. Since I didn't have any clothes with me, I had gotten some pajama shorts from Trisha and a t-shirt from John to wear to bed. I was going to have to figure out a solution for that soon. I couldn't just go around wearing the same clothes for days on end, and what would I wear when I put them in the wash? Either I needed to get my stuff or I needed to buy things, and I didn't exactly have the money to buy a whole new wardrobe for myself.<br/><br/>At around one pm, I decided it really was time to go downstairs. It wasn't that I had been lying around in bed for hours waiting for time to pass, because I honestly had only woken up a bit before. I just knew that if I wasn't going to get out of bed then, I wasn't going to get out at all. Eventually, I would consider the fact that it was already getting late and that I was going to go back to bed soon anyway, so there wasn't really a point to wake up in the first place. But that really was the wrong mentality.<br/><br/>So, out of bed, I got. After throwing off the covers and standing up on my feet, I reached out to open the curtain of the roof window, letting the light in fully. I changed back into the clothes from the day before and left the room as if I were sneaking out of a stranger's bedroom. Almost right outside the door, I had to go down the pretty steep steps before I reached the floor with all the other bedrooms. I decided to quickly run to the bathroom before I went and showed myself to everybody else.<br/><br/>Looking in the mirror, my appearance reflected exactly the way I felt: tired and gloomy. I splashed some water in my face and tried to convince myself that everything was going to be ok. Maybe it was going to take a while, but I couldn't let it control my life. I was determined to get over it. I did not feel like letting my life stay in this low part.<br/><br/>When I came downstairs so find some food, Emily came charging at me while giggling. I picked her up and greeted her while she clutched to my body, and walked towards the kitchen. Trisha was sitting at the simple table, reading a book. She looked up when she heard my footsteps and smiled.<br/><br/>"Come on, Emily, let Ireland be," she told her daughter, already getting up to take her from me.<br/><br/>Being the stubborn girl she was, Emily held on to me even tighter and shook her head. "No."<br/><br/>"It's ok," I dismissed before an unnecessary fight would start, "however, I am afraid your daughter is turning into a monkey."<br/><br/>When I leaned down to put her on a chair, she did let go of me and immediately requested a banana to continue my joke. Trisha gave her one with an eye roll, happy enough that her daughter was actually asking to eat fruit. I made a bowl of cereal for myself while she made us both a cup of coffee.<br/><br/>"So, what do you want to do today?" Trisha asked carefully, holding the hot cup in her hands.<br/><br/>I shrugged and finished chewing what I had in my mouth before talking. "I was thinking of doing a drive by to check if I can pick up any clothes and other essentials. Then when I get back, I'll probably try to figure out what to do next with my life."<br/><br/>"You know you can stay here as long as you like, right? There's no need to rush it all. Just take your time, take as much time as you need."<br/><br/>"Yeah, I know," I nodded as John came back from running errands and entered the house through the kitchen door, "but I don't want to overstay my welcome. I'll probably stay with my parents if I know it's going to take another while to find a place to move into."<br/><br/>"What's happening?" John asked as he threw his keys on one of the countertops and took his jacket off.<br/><br/>"Ireland is going to go check if she can pick up some stuff from Jack's house," she whispered the last two words and tried covering her mouth a little, "and she wants to go look if she can find some place to live, but I told her she doesn't have to rush into it at all."<br/><br/>"Oh, yeah, of course," he nodded in agreement and joined us at the table (Emily was already somewhere else probably playing with some of her toys). "Do you want me to come with you to get your belongings?"<br/><br/>"I'll do it myself," I told him as I finished my coffee, "I only want to go in if nobody's there, and I'll probably be faster by myself since I know where everything is, what I want, and how to be sneaky."<br/><br/>"Are you sure? Not even a lift?"<br/><br/>"Yeah. Me being here shouldn't suddenly change the way you plan out your days. You go do whatever it is you normally do."<br/><br/>"If you insist."<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>Not much later, I was sat in my car, driving slowly along the road where I used to live. It probably looked very suspicious, somebody scoping the area while going way under the speed limit, but I didn't want to suddenly catch Jack and anybody else going the other direction and seeing me. Once I got up to the house, I quickly looked at the driveway and was relieved to see that there wasn't a car on it already. So, I quickly pulled over and entered the house with the key I still had in possession.<br/><br/>And then the dirty work began.<br/><br/>The first thing I put in the small hallway at the front door was the box of letters and the list from Cam. The small cute notes Jack had written me and I had kept were all ripped off the board and torn into little pieces that could now be found on the floor. I sucked it up and tried to not let it get to me. Those notes didn't matter anymore. Maybe there had been a time when they meant something, but with the way we acted yesterday, there was no way they had any value anymore.<br/><br/>Next, I ran upstairs and grabbed the biggest suitcase I could find. I didn't care that it was the one that Jack always took on tour with him because all of his clothes would fit in it; I didn't care that he'd probably never find a suitcase just as good as it; I didn't care that he'd probably hate me more for taking it. I needed it right now, and he was going to have to deal with it.<br/><br/>Before putting as many clothes as I could in it, I ran to the guest bathroom and grabbed all the toiletries I had there. If I had managed to survive using only those for a week, I could survive another long while. So, they were all thrown into a plastic bag and placed into the large suitcase. Next, I turned to the closet and only picked out the clothes I wanted to take with me the most, including underwear. If I had space left over, I could always through some more stuff in it.<br/><br/>However, when it was nearly full, there was an unexpected addition. And that addition looked at me with small beady eyes.<br/><br/><em>"Taco!"</em> I gasped in shock, completely having forgotten about her, while she meowed at me. "You can't go in here."<br/><br/>I picked her up and put her on the bed instead. Smuggling a cat in a fairly airtight contraption wasn't the best idea ever.<br/><br/>"I'm sorry," I pouted and stroked her soft fur as she continued to stare at me with wide eyes, "I can't take you with me. I'm staying with somebody else right now and I can't really just show up with you and expect them to be ok with it. But as soon as I get my own place, I will come back for you. Right now, it's best for you to stay with Jack, as much as I don't enjoy that. Just know I will not abandon you and leave you here forever. Cam gave you to me when Jack and I had our first serious fight, so you're also going to stay with me after our last serious fight. You're technically mine, so he can't get mad at me for that."<br/><br/>She meowed at me once again when I zipped the suitcase shut and said goodbye to her. I didn't want to leave her behind, but I didn't have a choice.<br/><br/>The last thing I had to pick up was Cam's guitars. It might sound a bit ironic considering Taco, but there was no way I was going to leave them here with Jack. There were prized possessions of Cam, and I wasn't going to leave them in a place like this. It wasn't that I believed that Jack was going to break them the next chance he got, I just didn't want to leave something behind that had such a sentimental value.<br/><br/>So, I put them back into their cases and took them with me as well. It took a couple of trips to take it all out to the car, and it took me a while to figure out how to make it all fit, but eventually I was backing out of the driveway for what could possibly be the last time in a while (until I came to pick up Taco, of course).<br/><br/>I just wished that Cam had written a letter to help me through this, but there wasn't even a mention of writing a letter to help me through a breakup on the list. He had had too much faith in me. I was going to have to go through this without any of his help, and that thought scared me.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Hey, I'm Busy Right Now, Call Me Later</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I took a deep breath and a large gulp of cold water as I tried to shake off my nerves. I already got anxious meeting people I would get introduced to through a mutual friend, but now I was actually going to go into a conference with complete strangers. Somehow I had taken the initiative to set up a meeting with people on the other side of the continent through skype. I had no idea what I was doing. What was I even going to say? What if they were going to ask me questions I couldn't answer? What if I got choked up and couldn't get a word out of my mouth?<br/><br/>This was almost just as important as contacting all those record labels!<br/><br/>I let the cursor hover over the call button for a while, waiting for the clock to strike six pm, and finally clicked. My heart was thumping inside my chest as I secretly hoped they had forgotten or wouldn't pick up. But then again, it meant I was going to have to do retry it later again, and I would rather have it over and done with.<br/><br/>After a few dial tones, the sound suddenly stopped and the video chat popped up. I was staring right at four guys and a woman in the middle and a mirror imaged video of myself in a smaller box at the bottom of the screen.<br/><br/>"Hi," I greeted happily, not sure how I was supposed to start a conversation like this. I was great at formal things if I was not suddenly faced with them. This, unfortunately, was a very sudden moment.<br/><br/>The woman returned the greeting first, having been the one I had been emailing back and forth with for quite a while now, and then the guys said their hellos as well. Luckily for me, they decided to break the ice first, because I honestly didn't know how to start up what I wanted to say without it getting awkward straight away.<br/><br/>"I sort of expected a guy to pop up with the name 'John' calling us," one of the guys (more specifically the one that looked like the only one that used hair gel every day to get it to stick upright) joked.<br/><br/>"Yeah," I laughed along with a nod, "this isn't my account since I don't have one, so I'm using somebody else's. The bass player's in case you were wondering..."<br/><br/>"Oh, yeah, I remember now." The one I recognized as the lead singer snapped his fingers as a light bulb went off.<br/><br/>So, let me clarify a little. Remember that Cameron had the whole year planned with tours? Well, it started off with Pierce The Veil in February. Obviously, something kind of got in the way of everything. But now with me taking Cam's place, I needed to make sure if it was still going to happen if they knew about that or if they'd rather find somebody else. So that was for the PTV tour, Warped Tour, and the ATL tour. Honestly, I hoped we didn't have to play the All Time Low tour even though it was a great opportunity to tour Europe, because that probably wasn't going to be a possibility if we wanted to do it ourselves. Maybe I'd go through the pain of being around Jack (and Alex of course, but I was less worried about that) just to help out the band. But was the whole point of going on a tour with somebody you didn't like? All Time Low themselves said they didn't do that.<br/><br/>Anyway, back to the whole conversation.<br/><br/>The Pierce The Veil guys joked around a little more to make the whole thing a little less uncomfortable. It was probably a thing they did often with the interviews they gave. I, however, had no experience whatsoever, so I was super grateful for how nice they were being. It was like they somehow already knew beforehand that I didn't know how to deal with things like this, but it was probably just what they were like.<br/><br/>Eventually, their manager, who was the woman with them, put them back on track by 'asking' me about the whole touring situation. In the end, the band had to make the choice to tour with us or not, which was why I was calling them in the first place.<br/><br/>"Oh, yeah, right. So, you guys probably know what happened," I started and they all nodded their heads in unison. "Ok, then I don't need to go over it all again. Anyway, although the label dropped the band and we no longer have a manager, which is why I'm here, the band isn't breaking up. I'm going to be taking my brother's place--"<br/><br/>"Wait, you're his sister?!" The lead singer, Vic, interrupted, not meaning to be rude.<br/><br/>"Yep, twin sister," I confirmed with a half smile. Something in me was surprised that they didn't know, but then again the only way they could have known was through my surname and Knight was pretty common. Social media could have been a way to find out, but that wasn't all that reliable.<br/><br/>"Oh, I'm sorry." He frowned and the whole lighthearted mood switched, which was exactly the mood I had been afraid of in the beginning.<br/><br/>I shrugged. "I can talk about his death and have a really somber conversation with you, or I could talk about how I'm continuing the dream he wasn't able to finish."<br/><br/>I really tried turning it into a 'positive' thing although my awkward wording probably gave away that I just really didn't want to talk about it. Every time I remotely thought about it in depth again, I'd start having flashbacks to the scene again, and I didn't want to risk that happening in front of practically strangers.<br/><br/>"Right, continue on then." The manager smiled, probably realizing this would otherwise end up being uncomfortable for both sides.<br/><br/>I nodded and continued on with my proposition. "Ok, so, I completely understand if you'd rather find another band to support you on this tour. It probably makes a lot more sense, because you have no idea what it's going to be like with me singing instead of Cam. It's the same problem we have with record labels. Well, you could technically hear me on the track 'Around the World and Back'. What I'm doing right now is trying to learn all the songs then wanted to play on guitar, and remember all the lyrics. We also have a couple of songs that are close to being able to be recorded, so we're trying to finish off one pretty soon. So, I don't know if you'd like to give that a chance or do whatever feels better and safer to you."<br/><br/>"I know the song 'Around the World and Back', it's pretty good," Vic nodded, twirling a pencil between his fingers, "so when do you think you'd have this song finished?"<br/><br/>"Umm, we have the lyrics and--" I was cut off by my phone buzzing on the table right beside the laptop. I picked it up to quickly silence it, only to see it was Jack. Rather than declining it immediately or just letting it ring, I decided to send him an auto-response text stating <em>'Hey, I'm busy right now, call me later'.</em> To me, it seemed to be the most fitting one and the one that would hurt the most in the long run.<br/><br/>"Sorry about that," I apologized while putting my phone back down and it immediately started buzzing with text messages, "So, we have the lyrics and some basic ideas for the music, now we just need to do it all properly and then record it. I believe the songwriting will be the easy part, but finding a space to record will be difficult."<br/><br/>"So it might be a bit far-fetched if I asked if you could give us something to listen to by the end of this week?" He asked next.<br/><br/>"Oh... umm... I mean, we could always try... I'm uncertain if it would be anywhere near professional producing quality, but we might be able to deliver--"<br/><br/>Jack started calling me again. I sighed and sent him the same exact message again, hoping he'd get the message. All he was going to get from me was an automated message, nothing more nothing less. Declining the call showed that I still cared enough not to want to talk to him, but now I seemed more preoccupied and disinterested.<br/><br/>I threw my phone on the bed as soon as I was done, knowing the buzzing wouldn't be as loud. "Once again, sorry. Now it won't interrupt me again. Anyway, we could maybe make a demo-like track especially since it will be difficult to find a good recording space at this short notice."<br/><br/>"I think we can deal with that."<br/><br/>"Ok, then I'll get working immediately. If you change your mind, just send me an email. I'll probably reply in no time."<br/><br/>After that, we finished off the final details, like how I had to send the song to them and other stuff like that. To me, I didn't feel like they were trying to make us write a song in such a short time because they wanted to hear it, but because they wanted to see how committed we actually were. Plus, it might also have been that final push for us to make that demo record companies really wanted to get from us.<br/><br/>As soon as the call ended officially, I picked up my phone from my bed (only to have to send another message) and ran down the stairs. I nearly tripped over a couple of toys Emily had left lying around, but managed to balance myself out as I rushed to the living room where I knew John was sitting and waiting for me to tell him some news.<br/><br/>However, as soon as I skidded down the hardwood floor and into the room, I was not just met with John and Trisha, but also another couple of guests. They all stared at me in shock, looking at me expectantly. With all the eyes on me, I wasn't sure whether to feel happy or sad. Was I here to bring good news or bad? Well, it depended on who was hearing it.<br/><br/>"Thank god you guys are all here," I chuckled completely out of breath as I looked at the guys that were now for sure my three fellow band members. There was no getting out of this. "We get to go on tour if we manage to write a song by the end of the week, record a demo version, and send it to them."<br/><br/>"Wait, really?!" Charlie's mouth went wide open as he stared at me before standing up, "Fu-- Can't say that word here! I actually thought they were going to let us down."<br/><br/>"You can thank me later," I smirked and bowed in front of them. "But we have to get to work straight away."<br/><br/>"Yes, Ma'am." Carter shot up off the couch as well and gave me a salute.<br/><br/>As we all rushed out to get our gear (John and me inside the house, and Carter--he brought a simple cajun, not a full drum set of course--and Charlie out of their cars), I had to decline another one of Jack's calls, making him receive the same message again:<br/><em><br/>Hey, I'm busy right now, call me later.</em></p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Meeting New People</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Guys, please, can we just take a break," Carter whined and he stretched over the couch, his legs hanging over the backrest and his head nearly hitting the floor, "we've been working for three days straight and actually have three full songs written. I don't know about you, but that's pretty impressive. But, please, let us stop for a while and go out to have some fun!"<br/><br/>I looked over the paper and laptop we had on the coffee table and sighed, "but didn't we want to--"<br/><br/>"No. No, we did not." He sat up straight and glared at me. "We can keep revising these songs as much as we like, but we'll never get anywhere that way. I'm pretty satisfied with what we have. All we have to do is record it. Remember, these are practically just demos. Plus, taking a break and coming back always lets you think of better new ideas."<br/><br/>Before I could protest, wanting to perfect it all in such a short period of time, Charlie decided to speak up as well. "I agree with Carter. We need to take a break, this can't be healthy. We'll come back tomorrow and continue; we have that small recording space booked, so we can hear what it sounds like then."<br/><br/>"Honestly, Ireland, I think they are right," John agreed already showing that he wasn't going to pick my side here.<br/><br/>So, I replied with a shrug and a nod. "Ok, fine, any ideas for what we should do?"<br/><br/>"Oh, let's go to a club!" Carter suggested in an excited tone. He would often go to clubs, have drinks, find a guy to have a one night stand with, and then continue on with his day.<br/><br/>Charlie frowned and shook his head, pointing out what John was probably thinking as well. "Um, I don't think a gay bar would be suitable for us..."<br/><br/>"No, you idiot, just a 'normal' club," he rolled his eyes and turned to me, "it would be good for you. You know, let loose a little, talk to some people, have drinks be offered to you, get over Jack..."<br/><br/>"Come on, don't force her to get over Jack like that. She can do whatever she wants," John scolded with a stern look, already claiming the official dad-role in this band.<br/><br/>"Exactly, I don't need to get over Jack," I argued and crossed my arms in annoyance, "because I'm already completely over him. He, however, has been trying to call me ever since I stole his suitcase."<br/><br/>As if on cue, my phone started buzzing again. I didn't even have to check the caller ID to know it was Jack. Honestly, I didn't know what he wanted from me. He made it pretty clear that he would be off so much better if we weren't in any sort of relationship anymore. I just granted him that wish. Maybe he was pissed because he wanted his suitcase back? Seemed like a plausible reason to me.<br/><br/>But I would never figure it out, because all I did the entire time was send the auto-response message over and over again, and I did it again this time.<br/><br/>"Even more a reason to go to a club!" Carter tried to persuade. "You can meet somebody new there!"<br/><br/>"Or maybe ease into it with something a little less serious." Charlie wiggled his eyebrows and stood up, stretching out causing his bones to click back into place.<br/><br/>"As much as I hate clubs, why the hell not? We have to get out of here for a little bit," I gave in, clearly seeing that there were two people who really wanted to go, "just one thing, I'm not hooking up with anybody."<br/><br/>"If you say so." Carter jumped up and started pulling on my arms.<br/><br/>Not even John complained. Trisha and Emily were staying at Trisha's parents' house for the time being because Emily kept interrupting us and they hadn't been there in a while. So, there wasn't really anything holding him back. Of course, he was going to stay 100% faithful, though. He wasn't the type of guy to even think of doing anything of the like.<br/><br/>We all piled into one of the cars, John obviously being the one who said he'd stay sober to drive us back, and Carter instructed where we had to go. I took out my phone and smiled when I opened Snapchat without the annoying log-in screen being the only thing I could see. I had my own account now with my own followers and my own control over it. Nobody could tell me that I should protect myself.<br/><br/>"You need to unfollow Jack on everything," Charlie snatched the phone from my hand and started scrolling through my new-but-not-really-new-more-like-retrieved social media accounts. He went through everything from twitter to Instagram. "The first step to dealing with a breakup."<br/><br/>I rolled my eyes but let him do the job; I was going to do it eventually anyway. "The thing is, though, that I'm already over it completely."<br/><br/>And that was the truth. Sure, I had that break down when it had all happened, I had realized that I ruined my chance at ever having anything remotely close to what John had, but with how Jack and I had been acting we also wouldn't have achieved that. I actually had been so much happier the last couple of days while staying with John than the past weeks with Jack. Nothing was forced, there was no fighting, and they actually believed me when I said that I didn't have depression. Surrounding myself with better people was the only solution I needed, even though I still had horrible dreams and flashbacks. However, my drastic improvement did not mean that I didn't despise Jack anymore. Of course, I still did.<br/><br/>For the first time ever, I actually had a Snapchat story and it could be viewed by anybody who wanted to. I put my username on twitter and everything gradually started gaining a lot of followers. The only thing we still needed to do was put up the message of me joining the band on the band page, and I'd officially fit in completely. My life wasn't going to be as boring as I had expected it to be.<br/><br/>Carter somehow managed to get us to the front of the line without having to queue and the bouncer let us in without a further word other than asking to see my ID. The last time I had 'seen' a club was when I watched Jack's snapchat story for the last time just a couple of days before. He was surrounded by loud music, drinks, flashing lights, and all the girls he desired. My heart dropped at the sight the first time, but after that I realized how stupid that was. I could have my own type of fun with my own friends. The other time that stood out to me was when I went to a club with him before we got together and I kept teasing him. All I hoped for was that Jack wasn't going to be there.<br/><br/>John kept an eye on all of us as drinks kept getting poured and bills kept getting higher. At one point, Carter dragged me up on the dancefloor and forced me to dance with him. Usually, I probably would have declined or just danced a little to stay modest, but there was nothing holding me back. With me knowing that he was 100% gay, I didn't mind dancing sexually with him at all. I didn't hold myself back at all; we were grinding, practically standing closer to each other than we needed, and laughing like we never had fun in our lives before. All of it was documented on social media.<br/><br/>As soon as we both got too tired to continue dancing, I told him I was going to go to the bar and get another drink since I was close to being dehydrated. Of course, alcohol wasn't exactly the substance to improve that little implication, but I was still up for it anyway. By no means was I trying to get wasted and pass out, because that was not my goal at all. My goal was to go out and have fun with my friends, and alcohol just happened to be included this time.<br/><br/>Somehow, I had managed to get a seat at the bar and waited patiently for the bartender to notice my presence. I could only imagine how busy and stressful a job like that could be during rush hour. I did not know how they did it.<br/><br/>"Can I buy you a drink?" A male voice with a British accent said from beside me.<br/><br/>I turned towards the source and was quite surprised to see a man who actually wasn't too bad looking. He had near perfect proportions in his face along with stubble to accentuate his jawline. The most fascinating thing, however, was the way his deep blue eyes contrasted with his dark brown hair. He didn't seem real, and if he was, he seemed like he came right out of a movie.<br/><br/>"I mean, you could," I smiled as he sat down on the seat that had opened up beside me, "but I'm not sure you'll get something out of it unless you're looking for friendship, because then you're in the right place."<br/><br/>"Well, in that case... what do you want to drink?" He smirked as he gestured for the bartender to come over, to which the bartender nodded at him like they already knew each other.<br/><br/>"I was actually going to ask for the old rum-and-coke classic because I was just dancing and am completely parched," I told him, not even considering to decline his offer. As long as he really did do it for that friendship and respected that choice, it was all going to be ok. Maybe it could blossom into something more later on, but I could not just jump right into that.<br/><br/>"I'll get you that then." He placed both our orders and the bartender turned around to make them for us. As we waited, he looked back at me and introduced himself. "My name's Colton--Colton Lawrence if you want to know my full name as well--and while I might sound British as fuck, I actually have lived here for four years now."<br/><br/>"Ireland Knight," I shook his hand and couldn't help the grin spreading across my face, "I'm not Irish, nor am I a knight, so you could say it's all false advertising<br/><br/>"And here I was, thinking that I was finally making my childhood dream come true," he sighed and shook his head at me, "I guess I'll go have to move on to the next Irish knight."<br/><br/>"At least I was honest about it," I pointed out and cocked a brow, happy to have found someone who shared my sense of humor-slash-sarcasm.<br/><br/>"You're right. I believe I can stay a little longer just because of that."<br/><br/>"Good." I giggled as our drinks were given to us. I immediately wrapped my hand around the glass and took a gulp, thanking my new acquaintance for buying it for me. Carter was right, having somebody else buy you drinks really did make you feel good. It was like I was the chosen one.<br/><br/>"So, what brings you here on a night like this?" Colton asked me next, giving me a genuinely interested look even though I hadn't even started talking yet.<br/><br/>"I'm busy writing some songs for a demo we have to finish by the end of the week with my friends," I pointed behind myself with my thumb towards where Carter, Charlie, and John were all sitting around a table together, "but they desperately needed a break and two of them really wanted to go to a club, so here we are. Those same two are also really hoping I hook up with someone, but to be honest that isn't going to happen because I don't work that way."<br/><br/>"Why would they want <em>you</em> to hook up with someone?" He laughed as his face scrunched up in confusion.<br/><br/>"You know, the old to-get-over-your-ex-you-should-have-meaningless-sex-with-a-stranger thing. I, however, feel like I'm completely over him. Despite that, I don't even want to do anything remotely close to it."<br/><br/>"No sex on the first date, let alone first meeting," he nodded, "I can accept that as a very normal thing."<br/><br/>"Yeah, well, I'm not sexually attracted to people unless I have a strong emotional bond with them. So, either you're going to have to become my best friend in a short evening, or you're going to have to deal with not getting to hook up with me. Easy as that." I explained easily, not feeling bad about my sexuality at all. Maybe he wouldn't understand how it was different, but as long as I knew how I felt, everything was all good.<br/><br/>"I thought you said you only wanted friendship."<br/><br/>"You as in you-plural, not you as in Colton-Lawrence-you." I slapped his arm and he laughed at me. When he didn't stop, I pouted dramatically.<br/><br/>He sighed in sympathy and stopped teasing me. "Ok, ok. It's all good. I came here with friends as well but as soon as they get to drink some alcohol they're all like 'bro, we're going to get laid tonight!' and I'm not about that. Not because I'm not sexually attracted to people, but because all the one night stands I've had have been disasters, so I've sworn to myself to stay away from them."<br/><br/>"So I won't have to come to your place in the morning to save you from a clingy one night stand. I can deal with that."<br/><br/>"Sounds like you have some experience."<br/><br/>"Yeah..."<br/><br/>Our conversation continued in the same manner, practically joking throughout it all. I found out he worked for a management company, and I told him about my problem of finding a new manager. He said he was honestly serious about wanting to help us out, whether he be our manager or hel us finding somebody else, especially when he heard we weren't just some band that thought they were way bigger than the actually were.<br/><br/>At one point, he asked me if I 'wanted to get out of here'. With that, he did not mean go back to either of our places, but actually go out for some ice cream. The whole idea started when we somehow got on the topic of our favorite flavors and we couldn't stop listing things. So, what better way was there to make a decision than to actually go out and compare flavors?<br/><br/>He assured me that he didn't need to tell his friends that he was leaving, that he always was the last one left over without anybody saying goodbye to him, but I still thought that I had to tell at least John that I wasn't going to go back with them. Coincidentally Carter had just joined them again, so I got to tell all three of my bandmates in one go. I started off with just saying that I was going to leave, to which both Charlie and Carter whined and begged me to stay, but when I pulled Colton closer and 'showed him off', tricking them a little into thinking we were going back to his place, they were completely fine with it while John just wanted to make sure I was going to be ok.<br/><br/>We walked to the nearest ice cream parlor that was still open and both made very large orders. Colton told me to go take a seat while he waited for the employee to finish scooping up all the ice cream we wanted. It just kept piling up more and more. I, of course, got my phone out to post it all on Snapchat out of excitement, but I didn't think about the possible consequences it could all have. Filming Colton while he was still standing at the counter and zooming in on him might have given off the wrong intentions to anybody watching my story. However, when he came with two cones filled up with five different scoops of ice cream each, I couldn't help but film again.<br/><br/>"Holy shit!" I gasped as he slid into the chair across from me and I kept the camera on the ice cream. "That's a lot of ice cream!"<br/><br/>"You asked for a lot!" He laughed in return and struggled to keep them both upright.<br/><br/>"Which one's mine?" I asked next, eyeing both treats with desire.<br/><br/>"This one." He handed one over just as my recording ended. "Mine has mint as well."<br/><br/>"Ew, gross." I scrunched up my nose in disgust and shook my head, looking at all the scoops I had ordered instead. I had no idea how I was going to finish it and if I was going to, but it was worth a shot.<br/><br/>As we slowly ate the melting ice cream, I made sure to snap more pictures and post them, mainly commenting of Colton's repulsive obsession with the mint flavor, which he had announced as his favorite flavor. To me, liking it was the worst thing ever. I had my amazing coconut ice cream, which I had never tried before but they somehow had at this place. Having never tasted it before and really liking it when I did, I decided that that was my favorite over anything else. The only sad part was that I knew I probably wasn't going to eat it for another long while.<br/><br/>"My hands are so sticky," I groaned as I wiped them frantically with a napkin. The ice cream had dripped down the cone the entire time I had been eating it (I had eventually finished it) and gone onto my fingers. I felt like a five-year-old kid holding a popsicle and getting it all over themselves.<br/><br/>"You should have eaten it faster." Colton nudged, already having made fun of me about that before. He had finished it around ten minutes before I had, so he didn't have the same problem I did.<br/><br/>"Stop being so mean to me," I whined while pouting and trying to give puppy-dog eyes.<br/><br/>"Awe, I'm sorry." He pouted back and patted my hand in what was supposed to be a comforting manner.<br/><br/>We continued to give each other the sad face until his features suddenly went serious. "If it weren't for me completely respecting your sexuality, I'd totally kiss you right now."</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Time to Break Down</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I hadn't gone to work in ages, and although I technically had a new job now, I still decided to show up to my mom's cafe to start doing my shifts again. Now that I was going to have to get back up on my own feet again and had nobody to rely on if things started getting rocky, I really could do with the extra money to be able to start up. I still needed the money to get a new place to live at, and it would be useful to actually be able to pay for things I needed to go on tour. I could hardly stay with John forever and fly to another country for a few weeks without any useful belongings.<br/><br/>There was just one problem. My mom didn't know about the whole thing going on between me and Jack. Or should I say the whole thing not going on between me and Jack? I wasn't sure how she was going to react, but I knew for a fact that it was going to quite exaggerated. There was no way she was going to leave it be. I wanted to leave it in the past and not think about it anymore, but she was not going to let me.<br/><br/>"Would you like the take back some of the red velvet cake for you and Jack when your shift ends?" My mom asked as she looked over the cakes that were on display underneath the counter. There were only a few pieces left, but we already had cakes in the back ready to be eaten.<br/><br/>I froze up, having completely forgotten about it at the time. Before that point, it had never occurred to me that nobody knew about the break up except the people I had told, and as far as I knew only Alex and Lisa knew other than that. Well, fans started realizing something was up. Apparently, they were observant enough to notice that I was never in Jack's snaps anymore and that he was never in mine. Seemed like a small detail, but the clubs we respectively went to on different days only made it worse. Of course, I was getting a shit load of hate for it. I wasn't expecting any different. However, it did surprise me that I was getting death threats for breaking their 'husband's' heart and that they knew I was no good for him. People really enjoyed blaming me.<br/><br/>"Um... I'm not going to say no, because it's cake and I won't let free cake pass me by," I replied, hoping the news wouldn't be too shocking to her, "but I won't exactly be giving it to Jack... we sorta broke up a week ago..."<br/><br/>"What?!" She nearly screamed out, her eyes nearly popping out as she stared at me with an emotionless face. It was as if she was waiting for me to tell her it was all just a joke.<br/><br/>But that was never going to happen. I was as serious as I could be.<br/><br/>I shrugged, trying to make sure it wasn't going to turn into a big deal. "I'm staying with John, Trisha, and Emily for the time being until I find an apartment or something for myself."<br/><br/>"So you've been able to tell me about everything, you going to the boat house and joining the band, but you fail to mention something like this?" She really seemed to be angry at me, if not furious. The only reason she hadn't blown up was because of the customers in the shop.<br/><br/>"It's not a big deal," I sighed and went back to my post at the cash register.<br/><br/>"Not a big deal? Not a big deal?! What the <em>hell</em> happened!" She seethed as she came closer to me, not letting me walk out of this so quickly.<br/><br/>Luckily for me, somebody just came before I could even think of the answer I was going to give. At least it made my mom back away a little and not seem so mad at me anymore. Jokes on her, though, because I already knew the customer. There was no need to act all normal in front of this guy, he already knew exactly how weird I was.<br/><br/>"I guess I'll have to buy some cake and a coffee while I wait for you," Colton sighed in fake resentment and leaned over the counter to kiss my cheek. He started doing it as a small confidence boost for me, even though I told him I didn't need it. There was nothing between us except friendship and business related ties.<br/><br/>"I suggest you do, or else I'm afraid I might have to ask you to leave," I smirked back, playing along with the whole conversation.<br/><br/>He briefly looked at the cakes behind the glass and shook his head. "It's going to look so bad eating cake in workout clothing."<br/><br/>"You don't have a choice." I winked and went to stand behind the display.<br/><br/>"You're making me have too many cheat days... but fine. Give me some of the chocolate cake."<br/><br/>I picked up one of the pieces and put it on a plate, not bothering to ask if he wanted to eat here or take it along. I already knew that he was going to have to eat it here since I hadn't finished my shift yet. In fifteen minutes, we could go and do whatever we had planned that day.<br/><br/>"And anything to drink?" I asked next, urging him to buy more.<br/><br/>"Just give me the sugariest drink while I'm at it," he groaned in pain and gave me a playful glare.<br/><br/>I giggled and shook my head to tell him I wouldn't do that. "A normal black coffee it is, then."<br/><br/>As I typed the entire order in the register and was about to give him the total, my mom interrupted by saying she needed me in the back for a second and starting dragging me along by my arm. Harry was forced to take over, which caused him to look up in shock and stumble over to the cash register. It wouldn't surprise me if he was suddenly going to be bombarded by customers as soon as my mom started drilling me. That poor boy sometimes had the worst of luck.<br/><br/>"Care to explain." Was the only thing my mom said as she forced me to sit down at the same table I had been sitting at when I had my first rant on my first day working here.<br/><br/>I rolled my eyes, really not feeling up for another person trying to 'bring me to my senses' by telling me it was all a mistake. There was nothing I could do about it anymore, so there was no point in trying to convince me to go back. I didn't feel like I had done anything wrong. Walking out of Jack was probably better than staying there and be stuck in a relationship that only consisted of fighting anymore.<br/><br/>"Explain what?" I asked dully, resting my head by putting my chin in my hand, only showing that I really didn't care to do any of this.<br/><br/>"Breaking up with Jack, flirting way to obviously with that guy, why the hell you didn't tell me any of this was going on? The obvious stuff!" She wasn't holding back as much anymore, but refused to raise her voice properly in case anybody were to hear.<br/><br/>"Oh, yeah, right," I yawned and leaned back into the chair, crossing my arms and legs, "that guy I was 'flirting' with, I met him at a club the guys dragged me to, believing I needed something to get over Jack, which was pretty stupid because I did not need it at all. We tricked them into thinking I went home with him, but all we did was eat ice cream late at night. There's nothing romantic going on between us, I'm not attracted to him, this is just what our friendship's like. He's actually our new manager, so there's that."<br/><br/>"And what about the break up with Jack? Is it also that simple? Are you also going to act like that is nothing?"<br/><br/>"Ok, hang on, you're getting mad at me because we broke up? That makes no sense at all. Would you also act like this if I actually felt completely heartbroken about it and was in a constant state of depression?" I snapped back, almost laughing at my own 'joke'. Sure, depression wasn't anything to joke about, but it seemed so ironic. Wouldn't it have been great if I hadn't been depressed until the breakup? That would have shown Jack.<br/><br/>"No..." She took a deep breath and calmed down. "You're right. I just thought you and Jack were good together and nothing would come in between you. I guess it's just me showing how upset I am about it, I just can't believe you're so cool about it."<br/><br/>"Well, obviously I was upset about it at first, especially since I ran to John and saw his perfect little family, but this is way better than constantly fighting with Jack."<br/><br/>"You guys were fighting? Why did you never tell me?" She sat down on the chair across from me, no more rage coming off her.<br/><br/>"I don't know," I mumbled, regretting I had actually never mentioned it before and asked her for advice, "it all happened so quickly. After New Year's, everything was fine, even better than before, actually. But then Cam died and I disappeared for a week. Things didn't go back to normal after that. No fighting yet, but it just didn't seem right, like we were trying but it didn't work. Then he forced me to go to a psychiatrist. They were way too quick with diagnosing me with depression, which I also didn't tell you about. I didn't believe it, but Jack did. And then it just got worse and worse. I slept in the guest room for a while and it ended with us practically screaming and I decided to leave."<br/><br/>"Depression?"<br/><br/>"Really? Is that all you got from that?" I scoffed. Here I was, pouring my heart out, and all she remembered me saying was exactly the reason I left Jack in the first place. As I looked at her face, I saw that she was going to try to console me and tell me the exact words Jack had said. "Don't you dare tell me that it's probably for the better and that it's all ok. Cause let me tell you one thing, I am <em>not</em> depressed. Don't you dare say anything along the lines of you agreeing with Jack, because I do not feel like walking out on another person I love."<br/><br/>"Ireland..." she sighed and put a hand on top of mine; I was tempted to move my hand away but kept it still just for the sake of family. "I'm not going to say you are depressed, but you're obviously not ok. It's ok to be heartbroken about what happened between you and Jack, you don't need to show everyone that you're doing fine when you're not."<br/><br/>"I could say the same about you," I flared back. I could see from the bags underneath her eyes that she also wasn't as happy and joyful as she tried to seem. There was no was she had easily gone back to normal life after we had lost Cam so abruptly.<br/><br/>She stayed silent for awhile, confirming my beliefs, until she took a deep breath. "Ok, you're right. And I promise to call you whenever I get upset again. Nobody's going to judge you for it, you won't seem weak."<br/><br/>I nodded. "Fine, but the problem is that I am not upset."<br/><br/>"Bullshit."<br/><br/>"What?"<br/><br/><em>"Bullshit,</em>" she repeated, shaking her head at me. "This is just a coping mechanism."<br/><br/>"No, look, of course I'm upset about Cam's death," I stressed, especially with those constant reminders and flashbacks I had, "but I'm not upset about Jack and I breaking up."<br/><br/>"Bullshit!" She resaid. "I will not believe you if you tell me that you weren't even a little bit upset right after you broke up."<br/><br/>"And I'm not saying that I wasn't, I'm just saying I'm not anymore."<br/><br/>"I also won't believe that you're completely over him. You've been friends for over a year, almost been together for a year, lived together for most of the time of your relationship, gone through so much together. You guys were practically inseparable. There is no way you're all ok with this."<br/><br/>"Stop it," I whispered as I quickly wiped a tear that had managed to escape my left eye.<br/><br/>But she took no note of it. "I will not believe that you are completely ok with all of it despite all the memories you've built up. There was no way you'd bring him to a whole family event if you weren't serious, and it's impossible that you'd get over something so serious so quickly. What about all the time he's been there for you. He refused to leave the hospital when you were there. You can't tell me that you didn't appreciate that at all. What about all the future things you had planned with each other? I will not believe that you aren't torn up about this at all."<br/><br/>I couldn't hold it in anymore.<br/><br/>I retracted my hand as quickly and possible and used it to cover my face as the tears started falling. My body was shaking as I hiccupped between the sobs in hope to get some air. This wasn't what I wanted; this was what I had hoped to avoid completely. It wasn't that I was afraid of anybody judging me, I was afraid of not being able to be by myself and get over him. It was so much easier making myself believe that I didn't feel anything.<br/><br/>"There we go..." My mom rushed from her chair and sat beside me, throwing her arms around my body.<br/><br/>"He-- He said I was a waste of h-- his time," I blubbered, leaning against her in hope that it would comfort me.<br/><br/>"It's ok, it's ok," she spoke softly as she stroked my hair, "it's better to let it all out that let it bottle up."</p>
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<a name="section0013"><h2>13. This is Where it All Starts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I stepped out of the shower and reached out for the towel I had placed on the hanger. The first thing I dried off was my face and then I reached the towel behind my back to wrap it around my body. However, before I could fully cover myself, the bathroom door opened. I came eye to eye with Trisha, who quickly shut the door again soon after, our short awkward encounter only lasting a few seconds.<br/><br/>"Sorry!" She shouted through the door. "I didn't realize somebody was in there!"<br/><br/>"It's ok, I'll be out in five minutes," I answered with a laugh. The best way to get out of an embarrassing moment was to laugh about it yourself. That way you could share the humor and laugh along rather than feel like you're being laughed at.<br/><br/>I quickly continued to dry off my entire body and put on my clothes. I didn't want to be any longer in there than needed. If Trisha had come in, she probably had done so for a reason, even if it was only to put laundry away or something. I tried my best to stay out of the way as possible so I wouldn't become a burden to them. Although they were ok with me staying here, I didn't want them to have to take care for me as well. I already offered to pay them back in some way. Occasionally I would cook dinner, I helped clean the house, and I even told them to go away for the weekend and that I'd take care of Emily. That weekend was to start the next day.<br/><br/>After hanging up my towel to dry again, I went downstairs and into the kitchen to get myself something to drink. Trisha was already there, making a pot of coffee. She smiled at me and started apologizing once again, "I'm so sorry about that."<br/><br/>I shrugged it off. "It's ok, I should have shown somehow that I was in there."<br/><br/>"Yes, but it's my fault that the lock is broken and that I don't have any other way to show that it is occupied," she argued and filled a cup with coffee before gesturing to me to ask if I also wanted some. When I nodded, she took another cup out of the cupboard and filled that one as well.<br/><br/>"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now. Plus, I'm going to be living on the road with three guys for a while, I'm going to have to get used to getting walked in on."<br/><br/>"True."<br/><br/>We went to sit at the kitchen table to drink or coffee. It was completely silent in the house. John had taken Emily out for a while to watch a kids movie at the cinema, meaning there was no high-pitched squealing at all. Trisha and I also weren't speaking to each other, not having anything to say, but I could tell she had something on her mind. I wasn't sure whether or not I was supposed to ask her what she was thinking about, but staying quiet also seemed like the wrong thing to do. Lucky for me, she already started speaking.<br/><br/>"I know this might be a very weird question to ask, and I don't know exactly know why I'm asking it," she started off, looking more at her cup of coffee than at me, "but how the hell do you manage to look like that?"<br/><br/>"Like what?" I frowned and brought my own coffee to my lips to drink.<br/><br/>"I don't know... Like a fucking model?"<br/><br/>I nearly spit out my coffee as her words reached me and started making sense. Putting down the cup, I stared at her as if she had gone crazy. "I by no means look like a model!"<br/><br/>"Oh, please," she scoffed and shook her head, "you're nearly perfect."<br/><br/>"Trust me, I'm not. I'm actually still trying to gain some weight, but it's a lot more difficult than you think."<br/><br/>"I already gain weight when I look in the direction of a slice of cake. You cannot tell me that it is difficult to gain weight."<br/><br/>"Well, yeah, I can do it too if I decide to eat junk food 24/7 and not work out, but there's a difference between doing that and trying to gain weight healthily."<br/><br/>"Then I'm going to ask you to help me, but not to gain weight, to lose weight," she insisted, leaning back in her chair as she gave me a mild version of an evil eye.<br/><br/>I shrugged, not minding one bit if she wanted me to. There had been a reason as to why I had been offered a job to be a personal trainer at some gym. I actually considered it fun. "Alright. We're going to start today. Colton and I were going to go outside to the park but we always start with running. I suggest you come with us for the running part and try to do your best and then I'll continue further with Colton, not because I don't think you're not capable of doing what we're doing but because you need to take steps and not overwork yourself."<br/><br/><em>"Today?!"</em> Her eyes nearly bulged out.<br/><br/>"Yes, otherwise you'll never start. I'll even make us a good healthy dinner tonight."<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>Two hours later, Trisha and I were in workout gear. Since it was still way too cold outside, we were quite layered up, but only in clothes that were made for working out outside during the winter months. Trisha had her own running pants, but had to borrow one of my long sleeved shirts and light jackets. I was totally going to convince her to buy her own, though.<br/><br/>We waited for Colton to show up, who was already jumping up and down as I opened the front door. He obviously had already been running for a little while, probably from where he came from to the house.<br/><br/>"Trisha's coming with us for the first part," I announced and gestured her to follow me.<br/><br/>"Oh, shit. Now I have to keep up with two girls! Fuck, one is hard enough!" Colton groaned, still hopping from one foot to the other so he wouldn't get out of his rhythm.<br/><br/>Trisha shook her head and held up a hand to dismiss him. "Don't worry about me. I'll probably be out of breath before we've reached the end of this road."<br/><br/>And so we started. While I usually did go much faster, I made sure to stay behind with Trisha and encouraged her to keep going. I made sure I never said anything about how I usually would push myself a lot harder, because I knew she was doing exactly that but on her own level. All I did was give her tips on how to breathe properly and cheered her on. With having had the same experience just a couple of weeks before, I knew what and what not to do. And Colton made sure to stay in the same pace as well so he wouldn't make her feel as if she was slowing us down. It wasn't a bad thing at all to not push ourselves for one day.<br/><br/>About a half an hour later (it could have possibly been longer since nobody was keeping track of time), we came back past the house and said goodbye to Trisha. Although she seemed really happy to finally stop and get a long deserved break, I was very proud of her. Now it was just my job to make sure she wouldn't give up. The beginning was always the hard part.<br/><br/>Colton and I continued to a park a little further away, this time going our usual pace.<br/><br/>"I got an email about the Pierce The Veil tour," he told me as we were jogging past some people walking with dogs, probably going to the same park we were headed to.<br/><br/>I nearly jumped with excitement and let out a little squeal. "And?"<br/><br/>"You're in!" He grinned.<br/><br/>"Really? Oh my god, yes!" I screamed and hopped onto his back. "Best manager <em>ever!"</em><br/><br/>"I didn't do any of this, this was all you. All I did was receive the email and reply to it. They were super impressed that you managed to write three songs and record them with decent quality. You should consider being a manager yourself."<br/><br/>"And then fire you. Yeah, right. I've had enough stress, that's way too much work for me. Plus, you have better connections." I chuckled as he continued running at a slower pace with my weight on his back.<br/><br/>He gasped and 'threw' me off, which was more like a careful putting me down. "You're just using me!"<br/><br/>"Of course I am!" I giggled and started sprinting down the road.<br/><br/>The park we went to was often used by people to work out. There was some equipment, like bars to do pull ups, but we mainly did things you could practically do anywhere. It wasn't just full of sporty people, though. There were also families going out to let their kids play or to have picnics, couples going on a stroll, and people walking their dogs. It was a very diverse place, which was really nice since it was never empty or abandoned.<br/><br/>At that exact moment, we were doing push-ups on a concrete floor. I still struggled since I was busy trying to build up the muscle I was so used to having. Having been locked up in a hospital while chemo was draining my energy really made me regress a lot. Colton, however, was like a machine.<br/><br/>"Fuck," I groaned as my arms were shaking, but I tried to keep going, and could see Colton still going at the same speed as when he started, "stop showing off, will you?"<br/><br/>"I'm not showing off," he laughed and started doing a one-armed push-up, "now this is showing off."<br/><br/>"Fuck you," I whined and caved in. I let my arms bend completely, putting all my weight on the floor and huffed out in pain and annoyance.<br/><br/>As soon as the burning stopped, I turned around on my back and sat up. I stayed in that position for a while, just watching Colton not showing any signs of fatigue yet. It was so unfair. He lifted weights on a regular basis, and now he had challenged me to a competition. Sure, I knew I was going to lose no matter what, but this was something different. Only more motivation to keep pushing myself.<br/><br/>I decided to stand up and make it harder on him. What better way to do that than to sit on his back as he tried to do his push-ups? So that's exactly what I did. The surprise of all my weight on him nearly made him lose his balance and fall down. However, he managed to keep going while laughing at my miserable attempt.<br/><br/>"You're going to have to do more than that." He challenged and managed to keep going without even trembling, only going at a slightly slower pace.<br/><br/>"Oh, I will," I retorted and got off him again.<br/><br/>This time, rather than sitting carefully on him, I let myself fall forward like I was doing a trust fall. The impact and force of my fall caused his arms to buckle underneath him, making up both his the floor in a painful way.<br/><br/>"I thought you were strong!" I shrieked and couldn't help bursting out into an unstoppable laugh.<br/><br/>"Why would you do that!" He laughed back, rolling onto his back, meaning my legs were over his stomach.<br/><br/>"Because you were doing too well!"<br/><br/>We continued to laugh on the floor, having some miserable attempts of trying to get back up, only making our giggles even worse. And then the worse thing possible happened. I looked into the distance to my right, where most people were walking and saw somebody I knew. I wasn't prepared for anything like this at all.<br/><br/>There, Lisa was walking her dogs. Only, she had already recognized me earlier. I could tell she had been watching for a while. She was standing still in one spot as the two dogs kept sniffing around her feet.<br/><br/>My laughter immediately stopped when we made brief eye contact.<br/><br/>Due to me being silent, Colton was able to stand up and towered over me, looking down and raising an eyebrow. He held out a hand for me to grab. "Are you coming."<br/><br/>"No, I'm dead now," I tried playing off what happened, hoping I could forget about seeing Lisa, and stretched out my arms as I stuck out my tongue to look like a 'dead' animal.<br/><br/>"What am I supposed to do about that?" He snorted back in a joking manner.<br/><br/>"I'm dead, so I can't answer."<br/><br/>"Well, then I don't have another choice other than to do this..." he proceeded to lean down and before I could ask him what he was doing, he had picked me up and thrown my body over his shoulder so I was now hanging with my head down his back and my legs on his front.<br/><br/>I shrieked loudly and clutched onto his shirt for dear life.<br/><br/>But all I could think about was how this would have been so much more fun if it had all happened with Jack.</p>
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<a name="section0014"><h2>14. And Just Like That, It Was Done</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I stirred around the contents of the pan, having just added all the water to the ingredients that were already in it before. It was the weekend, and I had the house to myself and Emily. John and Trisha were out of town, getting some time to themselves. All I really wanted was to pay them in some sort of way for letting me stay here. But better way than letting them go out without the interruption of a child?<br/><br/>Colton was also over. No, it wasn't because I asked him to come over for company. He actually needed to pick up something needed for the whole organization of getting us to Canada. He just happened to linger around for a bit afterward, when Emily begged him to play. Although I usually loved Emily to pieces, I actually remembered why I thought kids weren't for me. I was all good with babysitting for a day or so, but having to do everything for more than that was tiring. She had been in my 'possession' for only one and a half days and I was already trying to find ways to get some quiet time.<br/><br/>She insisted on watching the same movie over and over. Luckily it wasn't Frozen, or I probably would have broken the TV by then. But I definitely could already sing along with all the songs from Beauty and The Beast (the 1991 version). The first two times, I didn't really mind her love for the movie, but I couldn't stand it anymore. Whatever we did, that movie was on. She didn't mean any harm, but really?<br/><br/>Oh, and she constantly wanted to play with me, whether that be dress up, dolls, drawing, or anything else she could think of. When Trisha and John were home, she was completely fine doing some of those things on her own, but she was taking full advantage of the situation. She was a hyper monkey that swore she couldn't survive if she was away from me for too long.<br/><br/>I put the spoon back down and turned the gas of the stove down a little. All I was making was some mac and cheese for us to eat. It was nearly dinner time and I honestly did feel like making anything that didn't require me throwing the contents of two packets together and then mixing it until it turned into something edible. The only and best option I could think of was mac and cheese. I did add some extra grated cheese along with the powder just to make it seem a little more like I wasn't eating something completely processed. It for sure was too much for both of us to finish, and Colton said he wasn't going to stay over for dinner, so I probably was going to keep it for the next day or something. Honestly, I had already thrown everything into the pan and realized too late how much it actually was.<br/><br/>I was about to start setting up the table when the doorbell rang. Rather than telling Colton to go while I kept an eye on the food, I ignored my first preoccupation and went straight for the front door. I wasn't sure who I was expecting to be there, but I definitely wasn't expecting the person who was standing in front of me. He also didn't seem to have expected to see me here.<br/><br/>"Jack," I gasped as if I was pleasantly surprised to see him here. "I just saw your texts today. You're here for your suitcase, right?"<br/><br/>"Bullshit," he stated, his startled expression switched out with a frown.<br/><br/>"What?" I asked, not sure how to act around him. Was I supposed to get mad? Did I have to feel sad? Maybe I just had to act like nothing had happened and that we were acquaintances? Or did I have to be happy to see him? It was all so strange.<br/><br/>He did, however, look horrible. His entire face showed that he was tired; bags underneath his eyes, his eyelids barely managing to stay open, his expression dazed. Even his hair looked like quite a mess and his scruff uneven. There obvious was an attempt to style it like he normally did, but it didn't look like it had been very successful.<br/><br/>"Bullshit, you haven't just seen my texts today," he clarified, staring right at me with piercing eyes.<br/><br/>"Ok, my wording was a bit off," I agreed and leaned against the door a bit more, noticing that this conversation wasn't going to be short, "I saw that you sent them, but I didn't read them until today when Emily opened them."<br/><br/>Jack was about to say something back, but there was a loud ruckus coming from inside the house. Colton yelled out to me, "hey, Ireland, your mac and cheese is burning!"<br/><br/>"Oh, crap!" I shouted and ran to the kitchen.<br/><br/>Colton was standing at the stove, having taken the pan off and turned down the gas. I quickly went up to him and took over to assess the damage. I had expected it to be pretty bad and not edible at all, but he had come in time. Only the bottom layer was stuck to the pan and the rest was cooked perfectly.<br/><br/>I sighed out in relief and put the pan back on the turned-off stove. "Oh my god, you just saved me. I think I can get away with ruining a pan, but not with burning the house down."<br/><br/>"This is why you chose me to handle all the complicated stuff." He winked and left me to do whatever I needed without interrupting. "I need to get going, though."<br/><br/>"Ok, just don't forget the file you initially came here for."<br/><br/>"Yeah... where did I put that thing down again.... <em>Emily?!"</em> He called out, having figured out in no time that she had probably stolen it so he couldn't leave.<br/><br/>"I don't have it!" She squealed without even having heard what Colton was looking for in the first place. The biggest giveaway ever. Kids always betrayed themselves like that.<br/><br/>"Oh, woah, random dude in the living room!" Was the next subject Colton switched to as he went to go to the stairs to find Emily who had disappeared into her room.<br/><br/>I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion and was about to ask who it was when I remembered I had left Jack at the door. He probably let himself in, having come here for a reason that I hadn't figured out yet. "That's Jack."<br/><br/>"Jack... Jack... you told me about a Jack... Oh... The guy you broke up with!" There was a small silence after that, nobody saying a word, even Emily was very quiet upstairs. "Well, as much as I'd love to figure out what's going on here, I really do have to go. So, back to chasing down Emily."<br/><br/>When Colton rushed up the stairs, I was busy finishing off dinner. Jack and I didn't exchange a word either as I stayed in the kitchen to transfer all the good pasta to a different bowl to place on the table. Even when I walked into the dining/living room to set the table, we stayed completely quiet. I could feel his eyes on me, but I was too afraid to acknowledge him. When everything was ready, I knew I had to face Jack, but Colton managed to interrupt just before.<br/><br/>"Ok, I blackmailed her into giving it to me," he panted as if he had just wrestled an alligator. "Anyway, if I don't leave now I probably won't leave until three in the morning. I'll probably call you tomorrow."<br/><br/>He kissed my cheek just like every other time we greeted each other or said goodbye. It was our thing. Oh, and down worry, there was nothing behind it other than friendship. While he did admit to being attracted to me when we first met, there was nothing between us and there were no feelings. Even Colton said that he would never imagine being in a romantic or sexual relationship with me. We were just great friends that hit it off really quickly<br/><br/>I called Emily to dinner and decided to break the awkward tension between Jack and I. "Do you also want to eat something? I made too much food."<br/><br/>He gave a simple nod and went to sit down at the table. It was only then that I realized that I had already put down three plates. I hadn't made the conscious decision to make space for three people. And I also couldn't use the excuse that I was used to setting the table up for John and Trisha as well, because that meant there had to be four. Maybe I subconsciously wanted Jack to stay? I didn't know.<br/><br/>I didn't know anything. Not how to act, not what to say, not whether letting him in was the right thing. What did I even want?<br/><br/>"Uncle Jacky!" Emily shrieked as she entered the room. She dropped the stuffed animal in her hands and ran to him as quickly as her short legs would let her.<br/><br/>Jack picked her up and embraced her, but not as enthusiastically as he usually did. It nearly made me cry. Emily had no idea what was going on between Jack and I. She loved him so much as well, and she probably wouldn't understand if Jack and I were to cut all ties completely. All she saw was that we were both people who she liked, but she wouldn't understand the consequences. John was my friend, so that meant I was going to be around, but Jack came later. It was just like me no longer being able to be friends with Lisa.<br/><br/>Dinner was completely silent and awkward. Emily had begged me to turn on the TV so we could watch Beauty and The Beast again, but I absolutely refused. I told her it was fine if she chose another movie, but she wouldn't have any of it and instead gave me the silent treatment. The whole tension between Jack and I already existed and I knew that it wasn't avoidable, however it managed to get even worse. Sometimes we'd make accidental eye contact, and I'd immediately look away. Jack, on the other hand, would stare at me for a little longer. It was almost as if he was actually trying to get me to look at him.<br/><br/>When we all finished eating, I quickly cleaned up and put everything in the dishwasher. There was no leftover food for me to keep for the next day, fortunately. Honestly, I wanted to procrastinate having to talk to Jack, but I knew that it would be better to get it over with. The faster it happened, the faster he could also leave. Talking it out and ending it was better than always having this open ending we had now.<br/><br/>Emily, however, was a problem once again. She wouldn't let us talk by ourselves, so I bribed her by putting on Beauty and The Beast. While we were practically in the same room, I knew Emily was too concentrated on her movie to hear us talk as long as we didn't start shouting at each other. That was probably the one thing I was most afraid of; it turning into a screaming match again, only ending it off worse than last time.<br/><br/>We sat at the dining table, across from each other while Emily's movie was playing in the background. I decided to start off the conversation. "So, are you here to pick up your suitcase, or...?"<br/><br/>Jack shook his head and massaged his temples. "I didn't even know you were here. I-- Lisa said she saw you with some guy yesterday. I just wanted to know what was going before people were going to tell me lies. I knew you were around John a lot because of your social media... I just-- how the hell did you move on to another guy so quick?"<br/><br/>I really wanted to make a comment about him missing the fancy car out on the driveway, but I didn't want to be rude, so I just answered his actual question. "Colton and I aren't in a relationship. We're just friends. I met him at a club a little while back and used him to let Charlie and Carter believe I hooked up with somebody. Nothing happened, though, we just ate a butt-load of ice cream. He's our new manager, which is why he's around a lot."<br/><br/>"But Lisa said you guys were working out together and apparently looked like you were having fun..."<br/><br/>"Yeah, I work out with him because I finally found somebody who wants to. I don't want to go out by myself. And, yeah, we're just friends. I actually saw Lisa and immediately felt bad because of what it probably looked like." I answered truthfully. "But I can say the same about you. Before Charlie forced me to unfollow you on all social media, you weren't exactly <em>not</em> enjoying girls' company."<br/><br/>Jack froze up as if I had caught him on something he didn't believe I knew. "Well, I went to bars, got drunk as fuck, hung around girls, but didn't feel it. Nothing ever happened. I always ended up back home all by myself, drunk off my ass, and Alex disappointed at me."<br/><br/>I wanted to say something about his swearing, but Emily was so quiet it led me to believe she couldn't hear us. Usually, if somebody said a bad word, she'd be the one getting mad. "So, we've concluded that neither of us has been with another. Quite surprising to hear that from somebody who's time I was wasting."<br/><br/>"You know I didn't mean that..." He looked up at me, his eyes watering as his finger stayed interlocked above the table.<br/><br/>"Do I?"<br/><br/>"I got so mad at Alex for what he said before you left. I blamed him for making you leave. He, however, got me to realize how you probably already planned on not coming back. He's been trying to get me to get over you, but I think he considers it's taking too long."<br/><br/>I shook my head, not believing what Alex had been saying. "I actually wasn't going to leave. All I was going to do was go to Taco Bell or something, get Lisa to text me when they left, come back with food and give you one last chance. But his comment made me realize that that would have been so stupid after everything you said."<br/><br/>"I'm so sorry," he practically begged, reaching out for my hand, but I moved it away before he could touch it.<br/><br/>"Sorry for what?" I sternly asked, not being fooled by how upset he was feeling. "I can't forgive you for anything if you don't know what you're sorry for."<br/><br/>"Isle..." He sighed as a tear dropped from his left eye. He rubbed his face with his hands a couple of times. "How the hell are you ok with all of this? I'm over here feeling the worst I ever have, and you look like nothing's even happened."<br/><br/>"Denial," I shrugged, leaning back in my chair, "I somehow fooled myself into thinking I was ok by telling others that I was. My mom got me to break a couple days ago. Now I'm just at the point where I'm accepting that it might take me a while to fully get over it all, but I'm not going to let it hold me back."<br/><br/>"Where exactly did I go wrong?" He whispered.<br/><br/>"It started off with me griefing in the weirdest way possible. Now, I completely understand how hard that must have been to deal with. I don't think you were wrong sending me to a psychologist even though I didn't want to go at the time. I do, however, think you were wrong for not believing me when I said I wasn't depressed and disagreed with the diagnosis. Not everything has to be an immediate mental disorder. You could have talked to me rather than think everything was going to break me. Also, listening would have been a good thing. What if I actually was depressed? How would anything you said have helped me?"<br/><br/>"Oh my god, I screwed up so bad." He rested his head on the table, his arm underneath his forehead, and sniffled.<br/><br/>"Of course you can also blame me because my behavior wasn't good at all. First I was being unemotional, then I was being reckless, and then I tried to distract myself by overworking myself. I just didn't realize at the time. Maybe instead of acting like I was taking the medication, I should have talked to you about it."<br/><br/>"No... you tried to do that, but I didn't want to listen." He slowly raised his head again, but was still slouched over. "I know you're trying to not blame me for everything, I know you're trying to see the faults in your actions, but there aren't any. This is all on me."<br/><br/>"You didn't know how to act either, you can't say that." I disagreed and was this time the one to hold Jack's hand in return. When I looked at our hands, I noticed that we were both still wearing our rings. That had to mean something, right?<br/><br/>"I don't understand. You should be mad at me right now, not acting calm."<br/><br/>"I mean, I could be mad at you if you wanted me to. I could scream. But why would I want to? It's not going to resolve anything and I sure as hell have nothing to scream about. And, no, I will not scream out your name."<br/><br/>Jack snorted a little before trying to compose himself and mumbling, "sorry. I don't know what to do, I wasn't prepare for this. I was going to find out your whereabouts and then figure out a way to get you back, not suddenly be face to face with you."<br/><br/>"Just do what you feel is right." I smiled and ran my thumb along his knuckles. If he said the right things now, there was no way I was going to be able to say no. Although I didn't want him to take all the blame, I could also feel that he wanted to do this. Not just for me, but also for himself.<br/><br/>"Ok, well," he took a deep breath, "the last couple of days or weeks, I don't even know anymore, have been the worst in my life. Alex keeps trying to convince me that I'm off better now, but every single day I feel worse and worse. How am I supposed to get better if all I can think about how much I miss you? And I don't just mean missing all the things we used to do and the good memories, I miss you. I hate not being able to start a day with you and seeing what the future is going to bring to us; I hate not being able to hold you and know that everything's going to be alright; and I hate not being able to stay sane without you around. I know that I've done so much wrong the last month, and I know that it's going to take a while for us to fully get over it and continue on normally, but honestly I'll be off worse without you. I should have listened, I should have believed you, but I was too stuck on thinking you had to be acting out for a reason other than you griefing and other than me treating you like you were fragile. I mean, Taco keep looking at me as if I've committed a horrible crime. And I actually feel like I have..."<br/><br/>"Oh, so this is what this is all about. You just want Taco to love you again," I joked, biting my lip to hold back the grin forming on my face.<br/><br/>"No, of course not!" He stuttered. "Why would you even think that!"<br/><br/>"Okay." I breathed out.<br/><br/>"Okay, what?"<br/><br/>I stood up, pushing the chair back, and walked over to the other side of the table. Jack stared up at me, a slight fear hinting in his eyes. But my smile showed he had nothing to be afraid of. "Okay, I'll come back."<br/><br/>Jack shot up from his chair and enveloped me into a hug. The tears that had been threatening to fall the entire conversation finally did as I buried my face into the crook of his neck. I didn't ever want to let him go again. Although he smelled like he hadn't taken a proper shower in a while, his scent still comforted me. I knew that I was never going to fit this well with anybody else.<br/><br/>"We've been through so much together, we can get through this as well," I told him as I pulled away a little bit.<br/><br/>He nodded in return and cupped my cheek with one hand. "I love you so much," he confessed before kissing me softly.<br/><br/>I melted into his touch, having missed this for so long. Our bodies hadn't forgotten the routine, falling into place immediately.<br/><em><br/>"Eww,"</em> a high-pitched voice beside us squeaked out.<br/><br/>Jack and I broke apart to see Emily watching us from the couch. The credits had started rolling in on the TV, meaning she was no longer distracted. I laughed as I wiped away my tears, taking a step back from my boyfriend.<br/><br/>"Why you crying?" Emily asked and ran up to us. She clutched onto Jack's leg, who swiftly picked her up again, only this time with a much bigger smile.<br/><br/>"It doesn't matter," I told her, knowing she wouldn't understand, "but Uncle Jacky should be going soon."<br/><br/><em>"No!</em> Why?!" She screamed, grabbing two fistfuls of Jack's shirt so he couldn't let go. Jack's face mirrored exactly what Emily was protesting.<br/><br/>"Because your mommy and daddy don't know he's here," I took her from him as she reluctantly let go, "and I'm supposed to be babysitting you. It won't look good if they come back tomorrow and see him here."<br/><br/>"We can call them and ask if he can stay!"<br/><br/>"I don't think that's a good idea at seven pm. Plus, you should be going to bed soon."<br/><br/>"No! I don't wanna!"<br/><br/>"Well, if you don't go to bed, your mommy and daddy are going to be mad at me and I won't ever be allowed to babysit you again," I blackmailed her, probably in a similar fashion Colton had used early on that evening."<br/><br/>"No, no, no." She shook her head and tried to get down. As soon as I put her on the floor, she ran up to her bedroom to start getting ready for bed.<br/><br/>I turned to Jack, "really, though, you should be going before I put Emily to bed. John and Trisha are coming back tomorrow and I don't want them to get the wrong idea. If you leave after Emily's gone to sleep, she will somehow tell them that you stayed for quite long, making it seem like we did only one thing."<br/><br/>"Ok, ok, I don't want to be the reason why Emily will never be allowed to see you again." He smirked, understanding exactly what I had meant.<br/><br/>I started leading him to the front door. "But, you can pick me up tomorrow afternoon after Trisha and John come back. I can't exactly leave before they do."<br/><br/>"I'll show up around four then, okay?" He stepped through the door I had opened for him and turned around to look at me for the last couple of second we had together that evening.<br/><br/>"Okay."<br/><br/>He leaned down to kiss me one last time before going back to his car that was parked on the street.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Brace Yourself</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I was helping Trisha clean up all the mess Emily had made in the short time after she and John had come back home. Emily had been playing with clay, but made way more of a mess than she should have. I had placed a plastic sheet on the table to make sure the table wouldn't be covered, and I had forced her to put everything back as soon as she was done. But the floor was covered too. As soon as John surprised Emily with a new toy, she left all the clay and went to go play with whatever she had gotten. So, that was a very nice surprise for Trisha to come home to. She was back into mom-mode immediately. I felt bad, but there was no way to get her to stop and let me do it all.<br/><br/>"While John and I did have a lot of fun, I actually missed doing all this shit," Trisha argued, not watching her language since she knew Emily wasn't close.<br/><br/>"But I started it," I contended in return, "so let me finish it. I don't want you to overwork yourself."<br/><br/>She shook her head and stared at me. "You know how moms always think you don't do it right when you cook or clean? Well, I feel exactly the same even though I have nothing against you. I don't want to get mad at you."<br/><br/>"Ok, then I'll slowly step away," I raised my hands up to show I wasn't touching anything and started walking backward at a calm pace, "until you tell me you want my help with something."<br/><br/>"Seems like a deal."<br/><br/>I decided to watch her instead. She first tried her best to pick up the pieces of clay and put them back in a box that held the same color, but eventually she gave up and just sucked it all up with a vacuum cleaner. Apparently, Emily should have been more careful if she didn't want her clay to be finished in no time. I couldn't help the quiet giggles that left me whenever Trisha swore underneath her breath. Being a parent had its fun aspects, but there were so many shitty things as well. I just thought the cons outweighed the pros.<br/><br/>"I need to start packing my bag!" I jumped up as I saw that it was almost three thirty already and I hadn't even started organizing my belongings. "Jack's gonna be here in half an hour."<br/><br/><em>"What?!"</em> Trisha shrieked, her voice echoing throughout the entire house and my ears wanting to shrivel away with how loud it was.<br/><br/>John came running into the room, nearly slipping on the wooden floors, as he was in full protection/panic mode. He looked around the place, trying to find out what was going on. However, when he didn't see any immediate threat or danger, he raised his eyebrow at Trisha. "What was that for?"<br/><br/>She pointed at me accusingly with her mouth agape. "She just said Jack's coming here in half an hour to pick her up!"<br/><br/>That even caused John to choke on the air he was breathing. His gaze panned to me, his wide eyes telling me he wanted an explanation as soon as possible. The last time they saw me, I was still claiming I was 'completely over' Jack and didn't feel the need to have a coping mechanism. A sudden shift to him coming to pick me up must have been so strange to them.<br/><br/>"Yeah," I shrugged and was more focused the hangnail I had on my thumb than the people around me, "I'm moving back in with him."<br/><br/>"Ok, but that doesn't explain anything." John shook his head at me and wouldn't stop his stare. "You don't have to go back to him if you don't want to. If you need help with something, you can ask us."<br/><br/>"No," I laughed, hoping to make the situation a lot less serious. "Jack came over yesterday to ask you about my whereabouts but found me instead. I told him to leave because I was more focused on Emily, but told him to come back today. We kinda sorta made up."<br/><br/>"Kinda sorta?" Trisha questioned.<br/><br/>"We talked while Emily was preoccupied with watching a movie. We realized we both made mistakes but that being apart wasn't any better. So, we're going to start again. Jack believes me and I stopped hiding behind work."<br/><br/>"How is that kinda sorta? It sounds like you fully made up."<br/><br/>I blushed, not daring to look them in the eyes as I said the following, "cause I don't want you to think we had make-up sex in your house."<br/><br/>"Yeah... that was going through my mind..." John confessed with a subtle nod. "Didn't want to say it, but since you brought it up..."<br/><br/>"I promise we didn't, I sent him away after talking, you can ask Emily, we were at the dining table the entire time."<br/><br/>"Asking a four-year-old does not seem very credible," he laughed in response, "she's so easy to blackmail."<br/><br/>"Believe what you want, but I can promise you nothing happened. I don't even know whether or not I want to go that far with him again already," I answered truthfully. Honestly, I didn't know what my sexual attraction towards Jack was like. Either everything was going to go to normal, or we were back at square one.<br/><br/>"Good to know you're not rushing back into it all again like nothing happened," Trisha breathed out, whether it were in relief or overwhelment, "but you might want to go pack that bag of yours if you haven't done anything and he's going to be here in twenty minutes."<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>Jack had somebody drop him off so we didn't have the problem of having to drive back in separate cars. He had stuffed all my belongings into the back seat, including the guitars and the box of letters. I had just said my last goodbyes to Trisha, John, and Emily, promising the latter that this wasn't forever and that I was bound the be back in a couple of days because I needed to keep contact with John for the band.<br/><br/>After Jack had pulled out of the driveway and started down the road, he briefly interlocked our fingers and brought them to his lips. "Back home we go."<br/><br/>I hesitated a little as he let go of my hand to switch gears. "Actually... could we first go past the psychiatrist? I made an appointment..."<br/><br/>"Do you want to put them in their place? Show them that they were wrong?" He laughed but nodded as he took a right instead of the left we usually took to go home.<br/><br/>"No," I mumbled and stared out of the window, afraid of what was going to happen if I opened up about it, "you might have been wrong about the depression, but you weren't wrong about me being fucked up."<br/><br/>Jack gave me worried glances as his main focused stayed on the road for obvious reasons. "Is everything alright?"<br/><br/>I frowned and gave him a dumbfounded look. Was he being serious right now? Didn't I just say that things weren't alright? I just called myself fucked up, that was the opposite of being ok. I sure hoped it was an automated thing he said and not something he actually meant.<br/><br/>After he looked at me another time, his expression changed completely. "Wait... that made no sense... I'm sorry. Do you want to talk about it now?"<br/><br/>He reached over to grab my hand again and I let him. With him trying so hard to make things right again, I didn't want to get mad over every small thing I believed he did wrong. I was going to have to get over those things and remind myself that he really was trying, but that nobody was perfect.<br/><br/>I shook my head, "let me first talk to the psychologist and then I'll tell you, ok?"<br/><br/>"Ok." He nodded without protest.<br/><br/>This time, I made Jack come with me rather than stay behind in the car. Well, I didn't make him, but when he stayed seated as I got out, I stared right at him through the dashboard window. When he finally noticed my gaze, I beckoned him over, and together we walked into the office. The receptionist cheerfully told me she had corrected my name, which was quite awkward with Jack standing next to me. Luckily she hadn't mentioned anything about our previous conversation, or I would have been in deep shit.<br/><br/>We sat together in the waiting room, but as soon as I was called up, I went by myself. I didn't need to pressure of another human being around me. It was difficult enough to simply open up to a trained professional, I didn't need the feeling of Jack judging me even if he would never do such a thing. It was just a preference, but I promised Jack and myself that I would tell him everything as soon as we got home.<br/><br/>I shook the hand of the same psychiatrist as last time and sat down in the chair across from him. He quickly looked through the single piece of paper in my file and smiled back up at me. I hadn't come here enough for him to remember me properly, let alone remember exactly what had happened last time.<br/><br/>"So, Ireland, how are things going?" He asked me as he clicked his pen to start taking occasional notes.<br/><br/>I shrugged, looking around the room a little to become more familiar with my surroundings. "I guess way better than last time... I haven't been taking the medication prescribed, though."<br/><br/>"And why may that be?" He frowned, looking up at me. It probably wasn't common at all to hear somebody completely refused to take the medication without even trying.<br/><br/>"Well... that's exactly why I'm here. I don't want to tell you that you aren't doing your job right, because I full heartedly do believe you do," I started off before I seemed like a client that would only complain and think they were better at everything, "but I honestly don't feel depressed. Sure, I was in a depressed mood at the time because I was still grieving, but it's changed now. While I do sort of disagree with the diagnosis of me having depression, I do agree that something is wrong with me. Otherwise, I would have stayed out of your way and not cared much, but I do realize I probably need help."<br/><br/>"Ok..." He closed the file and picked up a clean notepad instead. "Well, we can start all over again with a clean slate. However, if depression does come out of it again, you're going to have to accept it as hard as it is."<br/><br/>I nodded, fully understanding what he was saying. It might have seemed like I was denying what was wrong with me, but that wasn't it at all. I fully noticed that there was something up. I just didn't believe it was depression. Maybe something with similar symptoms, but not exactly that.<br/><br/>After he asked me to tell him what was wrong, I started with my new story, leaving out the background of Cam's death. I didn't want to repeat that. "Um, well, I guess I can start with the nightmares. Every night it takes me quite a while to fall asleep. I'm not sure whether it's because I'm over thinking or because I'm afraid of getting a nightmare. But no matter how much I fear it, I will always get a nightmare. I've only had two or three night without, but I still didn't sleep all too well. After the nightmare, I'm not able to sleep anymore, so often I'm awake at around four am. So, usually, I'll leave my bed and fall asleep somewhere else before trying to go back to bed."<br/><br/>"And can you tell me what these nightmares are about?"<br/><br/>I nodded and took a deep breath, my heart starting to beat faster. I had hoped to not have to go through all those nightmares again; I hadn't even told him about them the first time I came. "It's often a flashback to the firemen dragging Cameron's limp body ou-- out," I cleared my voice after it cracked as I felt tears wanting to leave my eyes and my heart rate increasing even further, "sorry... they're pulling him out of the wrecked car. Sometimes it's a lot like the actual events, but often my brain created more images around it. For example, sometimes... sometimes... s-- sometimes..."<br/><br/>"It's ok." the psychiatrist stopped me as he realized it was getting a bit too much for me. "Just take a minute to try and calm down. You don't have to do this right now, we can always get to it on a later date."<br/><br/>I shook my head, not wanting to have to talk more about it later. I wanted it over and done with. So, to calm myself down I closed my eyes as a single tear trailed down my cheek. "Sometimes I see an imaginary image. There will be close ups of him and all his bruises and cuts. I've also heard him try to whisper words to me before, but I can never seem to reach him or he gets too close. Also when I zone out, I occasionally get similar flashbacks. They aren't as graphic, but they cause me to jump and anybody around me will most likely scare me. I guess last time I was trying to avoid people wanting to bring it up and tried to keep myself awake by overworking myself. It was a good distraction, but didn't work all the time either. And people trying to help me would often get me mad rather than happy."<br/><br/>We continued a little further with our conversation, going more into my specific behavior and how one minute I could be completely fine and the next feel afraid, angry, and disoriented. I told him everything I could with as much detail as I could, hoping that I would finally get an answer to what was driving me insane. I was given tissues multiple times and did have to stop occasionally as soon as I had to describe the event again, but that reaction only seemed to help him find that diagnosis I was looking for.<br/><br/>"Would you like me to tell you what I think is the right step to take next or would you like to bring your boyfriend in here so he can hear it as well and get all the answers he needs?" The psychiatrist asked as one of his last questions. I nodded, wanting Jack here to hear it all. That way I didn't have to explain it to him and risk another breakdown.<br/><br/>While the psychiatrist went get him, I was left to wait in the room all by myself. Luckily it didn't take long for them to come. The room with nobody else in it was so silent, and with so much area to look at, I fear I was going to zone out and have another flashback.<br/><br/>Jack came to sit in the chair next to me and I immediately held onto his hand. It wasn't because he needed support, but because I needed some. With how much longer this appointment had taken compared to the last, I could sense that he could feel that this time had gone much better than last time, but that it most likely didn't mean the results were any better. This time I hadn't held myself back and said whatever they wanted to hear. I literally poured my heart out.<br/><br/>"So, what I'm going to do it get you to stop taking the previous antidepressants I prescribed," the psychiatrist told us as he looked through my file again, this time with the new piece of paper in it as well, "they might still work, but I'd rather prescribe a slightly different one. It isn't necessarily stronger or less strong, but it might target what we want a little better. Hopefully, they'll get rid of the nightmares and other flashbacks over time."<br/><br/>I felt Jack squeeze my hand during the last sentence. He knew nothing about all the haunting visions I had been having. I was still going to have to discuss it with him later since he wasn't going to get all the information and backstory here other than all the technical and medical things. He was going to want to know what my nightmares were about.<br/><br/>"I'm going to diagnose you with PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder. While it isn't as severe as many of the cases I've seen, I do believe that medication will help and that therapy won't suffice solely. The medication, just like the last, might make you feel worse in the first few weeks, however over time it should start getting better. If you don't feel like it's helping, you should of course contact me and I'll help you from there. Oh, and..." He stared a little at Jack, waiting for him to say his name so he could address him personally.<br/><br/>"Jack," Jack quickly introduced, still taken aback by all the information he had just been given. But he was only going to be hit by more.<br/><br/>"Yeah, Jack. I also have a job for you. Other than reminding Ireland to take her medication, especially when she hasn't gotten into the rhythm yet, I'd like you to keep an eye out for her during the night. Try to make sure she won't get out of bed and stay up at unrealistic hours. It will be better for her to fall asleep than stay awake and afraid of getting another nightmare. Sneaking out and falling asleep in another room isn't helping much either."<br/><br/>"Wait, what?" Jack blurted out despite having tried so hard not to ask questions other than ones about the medication and process. "You've haven't been sleeping in bed? I didn't know this."<br/><br/>"Exactly," the psychiatrist continued and turned to me, "and Ireland, rather than staying quiet and trying to face it all alone, confront Jack instead. You might feel guilty for waking him up, but you need the support."<br/><br/>I nodded. As much as I really didn't want to wake Jack up and risk him also having sleep deprivation, I knew that he would hate me more for not saying anything rather than waking him up from a deep slumber. And so, I was told where to could pick up my medication the next day already, and Jack and I were off back to the car.<br/><br/>Our fingers had stayed intertwined the entire time except when we shook the psychiatrist's hand before leaving. We were both way too quiet, still processing exactly what was going on. My new diagnosis was something I could accept. It fit so much better with the way I was feeling and I so hoped that the help I was going to get really was going to work.<br/><br/>"I'll tell you everything you want to know when we're home," I promised Jack again as he started reversing the car.</p>
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